A Forgotten Fear: Book 1 of The Scarred Hero
by thein273
Summary: PLEASE READ CHAPTER 1 OF AFTERMATH. AU. Set 5 years later. Rated T for language and gore. Moderately adult suggestions and cursing. Hera banished Percy Jackson from Olympus with a promise of hellfire if he were to ever return. But circumstances outside of his control have summoned him back, and now new threats are rising. Ancient evils older than Kronos and far more frightening...
1. Chapter 1

Series Name: The Scarred Hero

Book 1: A Forgotten Fear

Synopsis:

Five years ago, The Titan War ended, but the trials of Perseus Jackson did not end there. He faked his death and forswore Camp Half-Blood, the one place he could always find solace and friendship. Now, after so long an absence, unfortunate events force the son of Poseidon to return to the place he had grown to despise. But a forced return is the least of his problems, for a great power is stirring within Tartarus, one only he and the Olympians know anything about. And it is also one that could ruin everything he had for long struggled to protect. Can he protect Camp Half-Bloods from shadows, and will anyone even listen to the words of a crazed demigod….

Chapter One: I Get Summoned

Everything went to Tartarus when the god of war drove in on a motorcycle.

Before that, the day was going pretty well. Sam and I were walking down a street in Manhattan, clinging to the shadows to avoid being noticed by the occasional passing monster. I had my hand stuck in my right pocket, fingering my lethal ballpoint pen named Anaklusmos, translation, Riptide. A fitting name by all accounts if you ask me, considering my dad's Poseidon and all that.

Alright, maybe I should explain. Given the fact that whoever's reading this is more than likely human, I will use simple language. Think back to your old Latin classes and History lessons about the old Greek myths. Yeah, that's it, the twelve Olympian gods, horrible, disgusting monsters, three headed dogs, you got it. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but all those legends are true. You heard me alright. You live in a world of monsters and all-powerful beings and didn't even know it. Trust me; ignore science, its wrong half the time anyway.

Me, I'm a half-blood, a demigod, offspring of an Olympian and a mortal. My mother's name is Sally Jackson. You might see her name on a novel when you're in a bookstore. She's a published author now. I used to live, at least for the few months I was around, with my stepdad Paul Blofis, but he isn't my actual dad. Every mortal I know thinks my dad was a sailor that was lost at sea when I was really little, but that's a lie. Granted, up until I was twelve and my demon math teacher tried to kill me, I believed that too.

It all started during a field trip in sixth grade. We were going to this museum as a class, which was being chaperoned by my favorite teacher Mr. Brunner and my least favorite, Mrs. Dodds. While we were eating lunch, the school bully Nancy stopped by to "accidentally" dump her lunch in my friend Grover's lap. I lost it. I stood to confront her, but she wasn't there. She was lying in the water fountain, soaked to the skin, screaming that I'd pushed her when I clearly remembered just standing there. My teacher Mrs. Dodds walked me into the museum. When she stopped, she started lecturing me on how would I think they wouldn't find out, and that I should confess. Seeming I had no clue what she was talking about, she decided to kill me for it. She turned into a withered old hag with bat wings and tried to kill me. Then my paralyzed teacher pulled in on a wheelchair and tossed me an uncapped pen, which instantly transformed into a three foot long golden sword once it touched my hand. I vaporized my Pre-algebra teacher that day.

Obviously, she wasn't actually my teacher. I found that out only later when my best friend and mother dragged me to this camp for demigods where I trained for four summers and a winter. Of course, those stays were interrupted by life-threatening quests to recover Zeus' lightning bolt, find my best friend Grover and the Golden Fleece, rescue Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, and navigate the Labyrinth to find Ariadne's string. The last summer was a war with the Titans, but that's a different story in and of itself.

However, all of that changed six years ago after the war ended. We were celebrating and winning rewards for the great work we did, but then Hera, the Goddess of Marriage, pulled me over to have "a quick word." That quick word involved threatening me on consequence of death if I ever stepped foot in Camp Half-Blood again. It seems that Percy Jackson had outstayed his welcome among the children of the gods, and the doubt already floating in my mind caused my answer to be quick and decisive.

It's amazing how the word "yes" can change your life so quickly.

So I exchanged a few parting words with my father and was transported away from Olympus, screaming as I went, and watching as the already trashed throne room became a bloody mess of spoils and guts. That was the last I saw of my friends, them running through the door as I phased out, looking horrified and shocked as they looked around at the murder scene. You see, Hera and I both agreed that my friends would never stop looking for me if they knew I was alive, so we had to place sufficient doubt in their minds as to my survival, i.e., faking my death.

And I never looked back. I went on with my life, happier than ever before, livelier than ever before. I found I liked the uncertainty of the streets, always wondering who was going to pop out of the deep, dank spaces of an alley and attack you. It keeps your blood pumping. I guess I'd turned into an adrenaline junkie over the last little bit. And then I met Sam.

She was twelve, a black haired girl who looked a lot younger than her age, but twice as mature. Her hair had been cut short so it hung just below her ears, and she had a wild look in her eyes, like a chased animal caught in the snares. She was running away from something when we met, ramming into me and sending her sprawling. I bent down to help her, but she reacted like I was the carrier of some horrible disease, scurrying back in fear.

It had taken me a lot longer than I would have liked to calm her down, and by the time I had, the monsters chasing me had caught up, forcing us into a secluded alleyway where nobody either looked or cared. There I started my first conversation with Sam, although it was awkward and clumsy.

The little girl shuffled around in her spot uneasily, and I could see the ADHD she had no doubt been diagnosed with bubbling up to the surface. I waited with the patience I had only attained through years of careful, dedicated work. "Who are you?" I had marveled at the question. There wasn't any fear in the young girl's voice, no indecision, no wrestling with politeness. I only felt it was polite to reply with complete honesty, despite the name I'd given myself after my "death."

"Percy," I told her. "You can call me Percy." I didn't reach out to her, didn't try to comfort. I knew how she must have felt and I had no intention of pushing the limits of her toleration. She seemed to appreciate that, and it allowed me to get her to open up.

"I'm Sam," she told me, averting her eyes fearfully. "Don't ever call me Sammy or Samantha. Just Sam,"

"Sam," I echoed. "Nice name,"

"So is Percy," she countered. I laughed.

"Only if you don't know my real one." I told her with a slight grin, the first I'd worn in years.

"What is it," she urged, scooting closer as the little childish fire crept into her green eyes.

"Perseus." I said bitterly. I knew why my mother had chosen that name, even if my namesake had been a son of Zeus, not Poseidon, but it didn't change how far out of place it put me back in my younger years. Sam had thought on the name for a moment, and then, with a decided shrug, turned to me.

"I don't know much about you, or about the Greek myths, but I know they're real, and I know you can help me survive."

That was Sam for you; straight forward and spunky as hell.

I covered my eyes as a car sped by, blinding us with the front lights. Sam grumbled something about Brights, and jogged up alongside me. She brushed some of her wet hair out of her face and inhaled deeply. She glanced around nervously and favored me with a serious and frightened stare. "Did we lose them?"

I just shook my head and kept moving, covering a fair bit of ground with each purposeful stride. I would slow down for Sam's sake, except that wasn't an option, not if the encounter outside the movie theater had been any indication. From my pocket, I withdrew two things, a pen, and an energy bar. Neither may seem particularly useful to you, but there's something about them you should know. For starters, that "pen" happens to be a magical object that when uncapped transforms into a three foot long Celestial bronze sword that will always return to my pocket within seconds of me being disarmed. Secondly, the energy bar was part of an extensive stock given to me by the God of Travelers himself, with a slight bit of nectar, the drink of the gods, filling it. In times of injury or exhaustion, the smallest amount of that stuff could be the key to survival.

I broke the bar in half and gave the smaller to Sam. She nibbled on it nervously, glancing around with the air of a fugitive. Even the oblivious New Yorkers were starting to stare. "Relax," I ordered in a near hiss, nodding respectfully to a passing businessman. "Stop looking so guilty."

"Well, sorry, Mr. Easy-Going, king of nonchalance, the rest of us weren't born with the inborn talent of facades." She scoffed and sped up a bit to keep up with me.

I ignored her sarcasm and glanced casually over my shoulder. Behind us, trailing alongside like a curious stray dog, the shadow of an empousa loomed, not yet pinpointed on our location, but very, very close. I attempted to remain unconcerned, but it was significantly harder now that I had identified the threat and was risking exposure the longer I remained out in the open.

My mind reeled. For a half-blood, seclusion is not always the safest option, as separating yourself from mortals only singles your scent out for monsters to find. However, being in a dense, immovable crowd was not exactly the best way either, because though mortals were far more likely to disguise you better than the solitary shadows, upon discovery there is very few places for you to run. Whilst wrestling with this dilemma, I passed a place that I was sure smelled so repulsively human it would throw off even the most careful of monsters.

A casino.

Sam didn't bat an eye as I hastily guided her inside, walking obediently to the door and opening it without a moment's hesitation. We went about our business, acting completely at home, fidgeting with stacks of plastic, money-representing coins on a couple of tables. The place was jam-packed with gamblers, most of them reeking so strongly of cigars and human odor that no monster in their right mind would come in here. I wrinkled my nose in distaste and Sam turned from red to green to mahogany. Definitely a good cover, I decided.

I checked over my shoulder and saw the monster sniff outside the door for a few moments before moving on, obliviously disappointed at the failed catch. I let out an involuntary sigh of relief and redirected my attention toward getting out of there.

An exit sign was located near the back, but from what I could see, it was blocked by about a dozen close formations of buzzing, screaming casino machines. Another was being guarded by a man who was so obviously a giant of some kind it was painful to see the mortals not know. So much for my foul-proof plan.

I started to work my way back the way we'd come, intending to retrace our steps and put some ground between us and the monster, when I felt something press against my back. Tears welled in my eyes and I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Sweat trailed down from my brow and I had to clench every muscle in my body so I didn't unintentionally cause my assailant to pull the trigger.

Now, this reaction may seem strange to you, but I should have you know that except from the small of my back, where that barrel was pressing against, I was completely invulnerable. But the drawback to being an Achilles' clone is that the one part of my body still vulnerable was the most sensitive part of me. Imagine daggers plunging into to your softest places. Double that feeling and you come pretty close to what my sensations were.

Judging by Sam's sudden stop, I was guessing I wasn't the only being threatened. "Don't move, either of you." I didn't do anything except nod, and I motioned for Sam to follow my lead. She nodded, but her eyes were shut, so I wasn't sure if she was answering me or the gunman. I could only pray it was me.

We were shuffled toward the back of the casino to an exit I hadn't seen. The door opened and we were pushed onto the dark, wet cement outside. Now safe from my own bodily harm, my concern instantly switched to Sam. She was cradling her arm gingerly, and I figured she's at least bruised it on the fall. I turned to our attacker, who wore a dark hooded coat and black jeans, a matching semi-automatic handgun as accompaniment. He made an old friend of mine, Nico Di Angelo, look perky.

"What do you want?" I demanded, helping Sam to her feet. Even though his face was covered, I could tell he was smiling. He kept the gun low, but still angled so it would kill Sam if fired. I had to force myself to bide my time.

"Oh, this, that, some bloodshed, the works." He replied darkly.

"You're a half-blood?" I asked carefully, watching him intently.

"Yep, old partner of Anne's, an old girlfriend of yours." He sneered at me, and I held it together with difficulty. The very mention of the name Anne had me all but screaming in fury. I clenched my fists and struggled to remain calm. "Oh, cat got your tongue. She told me you weren't very glib."

"She was wrong," I said carefully.

"Was she, now? We'll just have to see about that, now won't we?" He leveled the gun at Sam's head. I could see the muscles in his hand tighten. He was going to pull the trigger, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I could feel Sam tense beside me. She was too young to die, way too young, but I couldn't intervene, couldn't stop it. We were cornered.

Suddenly, a blinding light lit up the alleyway and the rev of an engine turned the party of three toward the mouth. A motorcycle sat there, its rider wearing a Kevlar helmet and a sly grin. Fortunately or unfortunately, this motorcyclist I knew.

He hit the gas and came careening toward the enemy half-blood, swerving in front of him and sending sparks flying into his face. Blinded, he screamed and dropped his gun, scampering off with his tail between his legs. The God of War had just saved my life.

"Hey ya, punk," he leered, taking off the helmet and stepping off his motorcycle. His dark hair was buzzed back, a new look for him, but, as always, those all-black sunglasses covered the fires beneath.

"Ares, I'm not sure whether to thank you or stick Riptide in your ankle again." I snarled angrily, bending down to pick up the gun. The magazine was fully loaded, and it looked like a Glock. Pleased with my observations, I tucked it in my pocket and withdrew Riptide, bouncing it between my hands with a lazy smile. Ares recoiled.

"I always liked your style kid, just not your manners. Alright then, you want the long explanation or the short one?" I favored him with my friendliest grin. Thanks to the deforming scar across my face, that grin was enough to send a black bear running away. Even the God of War wasn't immune to fear.

"My Lord Ares," I began formally, catching Riptide on its descent and twirling it around my fingers. "It's a rare honor for the blood-thirstiest and laziest Olympian to pay me a visit, and considering there's no rush for time, I think I'd like to prolong the exposure." For a fraction of a second, I was fairly sure he was going to blast me to bits, but he held his temper, wisely, too. Even brawn can learn a couple lessons, I supposed.

"Slick, kid, slick. Fine, your dad and I got to talking, and we decided it was time you took a trip to HQ." My heart skipped a beat.

"If you're talking about Camp…"

"No, no, no, no, listen kid. Your dad wants a word, something about dark powers rising from Tartarus and all that. Anyway, he wants your lazy butt hauling tail back to Olympus before the sixteenth or he's gonna revoke your underwater privileges." He grinned, but I stared on through the lie.

"We are talking about the same Poseidon, right?" I asked sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

Ares just laughed. "Yeah, well, I guess that's what I like so much about you kid, up front, honest, and not gullible in the slightest. You kind of remind me of Clarisse."

I glowered at him. "As if I'd be related to you."

He smiled and took off his sunglasses with a flourish, the fires of his eyes flickering in amusement. "You act a bit like one of my kids anymore, Jackson. You have that attitude, and you definitely got that fight in you I admire. Heck, you just a hop, skip, and a jump away from being exactly like one of my kids." The wink he gave me turned my insides to boiling water. My fists clenched, and I started toward him, when I caught myself. The slyness of his tone when he said, "Exactly like them," made me realize how easily played I was. I breathed deeply and centered myself, bringing Sam in close and watching him carefully.

"Ares," I said. "You came; you said what you needed to, now you leave." The god of war just chuckled and got back on his bike, putting his sunglasses back on as he kick-started it. He looked up without his helmet and looked like he might say something before he shook his head and drove away, leaving me and Sam in the dark alley once more.

"What was that about?" Sam asked, clinging to my arm tightly.

"I don't know, Sam," I told her, looking down to meet her eyes. "But as a general rule of thumb, if the god of war drops by, it's never just for hello."


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, here's the stupid disclaimer. I forgot to put it last time and don't feel like fixing it. I do not own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**Please Review. Criticism is requested. **

Chapter Two

My Father Brings Bad News

It wasn't long before Sam and I were standing in front of The Empire State Building. Sam looked stunned, her eyes darting up and down the tall skyscraper. "So, which floor is Olympus on?" she asked, for the hundredth time. Oh, who am I kidding, the thousandth.

"I've already told you, the six-hundredth." I sighed in exasperation and rubbed my temples.

"But there isn't…"

"Yeah, Sam, there is. Now be quiet. The Council of the Gods is not people you want to play with, especially if you're not feeling lucky."

"But you mess with the gods all the time." She countered. I laughed and ruffled her hair. She cried out and I dragged her to the door. "Hey!"

"Yeah, Sam, I suppose I do. Six-hundredth, Derrick." I said to the security guard at the desk. He scampered, dropping his coffee on his lap as he hastily hid his book beneath the desk.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he stuttered, "Oh, hello, Jackson. Long time, no see, I'll just get the key and…." He shuffled about in a drawer before offering me a key card. "You know the drill, I guess."

I smiled. "Relax, I'm not going to go blabbing to Zeus just because you were reading on your spare time." He thanked me about a dozen times, and probably more, except the elevator doors closed and shut out his voice.

I hummed "I Will Survive" while the elevator climbed. Sam looked at me like I was crazy. "I like the oldies," I told her. Actually, I didn't particularly, but after hearing that song so much, I had to like it or I'd go insane.

Finally, the elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal the majestic, silvery, sparkling palace of the Olympians. Minor gods and goddesses bustled about, Hebe, Nemesis (goddess of revenge, we don't get along well) Nyx, the Muses, I even spotted the Fates in the corner weaving a gigantic sock. For amusement only, I ventured over to talk to them.

The old ladies, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, ignored me as I approached. By appearance, I could never identify them, but whatever it was they were doing told me enough. The one weaving the sock was Clotho, and the one carrying the rolled up measuring tape was Lachesis, leaving Atropos. The last of the trio always had a nasty habit of staring at me thoughtfully while she toyed absently with her giant pair of Fate scissors, as I called them. I was pretty sure she was looking for the least opportune moment to do me in.

"Killed anyone important recently?" I asked jokingly, punching Sam playfully in the arm. The girl just stared in horror at the Fates, her mouth hanging open.

"Just a politician," someone sighed. I whirled around to face the Fates, half afraid one had answered me, but their faces were passive as ever. I turned and saw a blonde-haired, gray-eyed woman in battle armor standing behind me with her arms hanging complacently at her sides. I gulped and felt my throat go dry when I remembered my old friend Annabeth.

The goddess narrowed her eyes. "You caused her much strife when you left." She told me sternly. I could only nod. "You did what was necessary, of course, and your actions were selfless and noble. It's Hera I blame for my daughter's pain, and her foolhardy plans."

"Lady Athena," I choked out finally. "An honor, as always," I continued, recovering myself and bowing at her feet. "Come to speak of Hera, does she have any more threats to me or anyone I care…to know?"

Athena kicked me and I stood hastily. Of all the gods and goddesses I had been associated with, Athena scared me the most. I'd gotten smarter over time, saw things more clearly, took more precautions, and had outsmarted some seriously intelligent monsters instead of just out-muscling them, but no matter what kind of headway I made, I would never come close to the strategic genius of the Goddess of Wisdom and Battle. I had crossed her a few, dangerous times, and had made it my number one priority to fix the ties between us. As dangerous an enemy as she was, Athena made an extraordinary ally.

"Hera's old rivalry with my daughter still burns fresh. Thankfully, they are not as determined to kill the other as before. Otherwise, my stepmother remains at her usual seat beside my father. However, the king and queen of the gods is not my motivation for finding you. Poseidon wants a word."

"I heard,"

"Yes. I warned him against sending Ares. I knew how…disagreeable the two of you are, Jackson."

"Can you blame me?" I demanded.

"No, I suppose not. It is unfortunate that any would have to endure his company for longer than a few minutes. Even I find it difficult to control my temper with him around." The bitterness in Athena's tone was almost human. Almost.

"Yeah, well, anger is what Ares does best." I glanced at Sam and shot back to my senses. "Um, my lady, this is Sam, Sam…"

"A pleasure to meet you, your…Wiseness?" she said meekly, holding out a hand which Athena favored carefully for a moment.

"Lady is fine," she said simply, reaching for Sam's outstretched hand and shaking it calmly. The exchange was interesting to watch, if not a little suspicious.

"Athena," I asked suddenly, drawing the goddess's wary gaze."Would you happen to know Sam's godly parent?"

Something flashed across her eyes, something I couldn't read. Then she turned and started for the doors leading to Olympus.

Ten of the twelve Olympian gods were seated already, excluding, of course, Hades, god of death, who was permitted on Olympus only on the winter solstice, and Athena, who hurried to her seat between Demeter and Aphrodite. I ignored the goddess of love, knowing one look at her might send me packing, and instead studied the other gods. Demeter was drinking nectar, the drink of the gods, while she stroked the hair of her daughter, Persephone, who sat at her feet and played with her bowl of cereal. Artemis, surprisingly, was there as well, instead of with her Huntresses. The silver circlet on her brow and bow lying across her back identified her immediately. Her auburn hair was braided down her back, and her moon yellow eyes fixated on me before turning to Sam. I gulped when I saw an expression of hopefulness creep across her face, and then disappear.

I kept Sam close after that.

Then I studied the male side of the gods. Hephaestus, the god of forges, tinkered with some metal, his long, calloused fingers moving faster than I could see, Hermes beside him, chattering on his cell in a hushed voice. Apollo, Artemis' twin brother, shot me a smile while he lounged in his throne. Ares was there as well, watching me knowingly, with Dionysus glaring at a bottle of wine with such intent I thought it was going to fly to his hand before I remembered his restrictions. I stifled a laugh when his hand shot out to grab it, and it flew away and into the waiting hand of his father, Zeus.

The King of the Gods was dressed stylishly in his pin-striped suit and dark hair. His beard was neatly trimmed. He peered at me over the brim of his glass while his son glowered at him from across the throne room. At his feet he twirled the Master Lightning Bolt, his power symbol, something I went through a lot of trouble to recover when I was twelve. The memories I had gave me some nostalgia, but I ignored them. "What's in the past stays there." That was my motto. It had always worked for me and kept me moving.

Next to Zeus sat my father, Poseidon, Lord of the Seas. He was wearing his normal Hawaiian patterned shirt and Bermuda shorts, his fisherman throne slightly darkened. Usually, the atmosphere for Olympus was pretty light, except for Zeus, who was regularly dull, but it wasn't so playful that day. Even my father, the jokester, was solemn. A lump developed in my throat as I first nodded toward Zeus, then knelt before my father.

"Perseus," he said lovingly. "There's no need for formality." I froze. My father was among the most laid back of the gods, but even he wasn't quick to dismiss formality. Something was seriously wrong. I nodded toward Sam, and my father waved his hand dismissively. I gulped. If my father didn't want Sam listening, it was probably for the better. "Hebe!" he called. His authoritative tone echoed through Olympus.

A beautiful young woman hastily approached his seat, nodding to her superior. Zeus, her father, reflexively tensed before he remembered Hebe was Hera's daughter as well. His wife's wrath could be extremely intimidating. "Daughter," he said. "Take the girl with you. I want her fed and given new clothes. That kind of attire is only admissible on the dead of my brother's kingdom." Sam looked affronted, and I wanted to hit Zeus for being so mean, but I held in my temper. I knew Ares was trying to set me off, and struggled not to let him win.

Sam said nothing as she was ushered off. I mouthed an apology as she disappeared through the doors. The Olympians waited for several seconds, and then Zeus spoke. "Don't let this summons go to your head, Jackson. We have asked you here because you are the only half-blood alive with the knowledge of this monster's existence. Therefore…"

"Wait," I said, interrupting the king and holding my hand up. "What's going on with the Torturer? Please tell me he's not plotting with Kampe again." I sighed. My old enemy had a tendency to start talking with his fellow monsters, forming plans of escape. Kampe was one of the worst. She was a jailer for the Hundred-Handed Ones (cousins of the Cyclops) during the First Titan War and had given me a hell of a time killing her. In the end, it had been a Hundred-Handed One who had sent her back to Tartarus.

"Oh no, nothing nearly as unimportant as that," Apollo chimed in, taking out his IPod earphones to address me. "He's using the door you escaped out of to rouse some of the other monsters that have been stuck down there for years. Medusa, for one, is now running her Emporium again." My heart stopped. I had vaporized Medusa back when I was twelve and she hadn't reformed since. If she was back, that was bad. I gulped. I almost asked what else had gotten free, but thought better of it. If I found out, I might lose my nerve and return to Camp Half-Blood. I shuddered at the thought.

"So…how does this help him?" I asked cautiously. The Torturer never did anything if there wasn't personal gain for him.

"We believe he might be using this escape route to ferry various servants across, ones who have sworn on the River Styx to serve him and to deliver prisoners to him." Athena said helpfully. My eyes widened and my heartbeat quickened as the fear took hold. The Torturer was searching for more people like me. I might have to go back to that…no, I would die before I returned there.

"More than that, if you die now, my son," Poseidon put in. "If by enemy blade or friendly fire, than the Torturer will be able to take you from judgment and imprison you. That does, of course, give you a chance at life again if you escape, but…"

"Okay, that's it. Now you're trying to scare me. You didn't just ask me to come here to tell me my life's in danger. What else is going on?" My father smiled.

"Unfortunately, we do not always need original things done for us. Hera had supplied that your antidote is beginning to run out, and one of the key ingredients to it is juice from an Apple of the Hesperides. We do not, however, have anymore, and Hera flat refuses to help us. Sadly, we need you to retrieve…"

"Let me guess," I interrupted. "Three." My dad nodded and I just about lost it completely. "Last time someone went after that stupid tree they were nearly killed by Laden. Zoe was poisoned by her own dragon's scratch, which is how she died. If you expect me to…"

"Unless you want to return to Tartarus, boy, you will do as we ask. If you die because of that poison you'll return there too. Without the antidote you can't survive. You will do as we say." Zeus interrupted shortly. I stared at him and then sighed.

"Fine, but I'm going to need help getting all the way to San Francisco from here. So return the apples here when I get them?" I asked. My father nodded.

"And now then, off with you." Hermes waved his hand and I was back in an uncomfortably familiar place.


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning! Warning! Sensual scenes following. Reader discretion is advised. And review.**

* * *

Chapter Three

I Copy My Twelve-Year Old Self

I was on top of Mount Tam, standing next to, of course, the Tree of Hesperides. Ladon snarled, coiling his hundred heads around the tree and slapping his tail against the ground. I immediately started backing up.

"Ladon," a girl in a white dress chided. She smiled at me, and I recognized her as one of the Hesperides. I swallowed back my curses. I blamed Zoe's sisters for her death. "Perseus Jackson, we meet again."

I narrowed my eyes. "Where are your sisters?" I demanded, hoping one wouldn't sneak up behind me and knife me in the back when I wasn't looking. The girl only smiled more.

"They come to see thee. They are anxious to meet the defeater of our father's king." I shrugged.

"I didn't kill him. Luke did." I looked back at Ladon, who was watching me carefully. I tried to remember how Hercules had killed him in the myths, but I couldn't think of anything except his two hundred beady red eyes.

Then, suddenly, I felt something in the wind change, and three beautiful girls in simple white Greek dresses appeared, each favoring me with a cold stare. The one on the far right was the first to speak, and her voice was musical and ancient. "Do you come to eat of the Apples of Immortality?" she asked. So they already knew why I was here.

"Hey, look," I started, not wanting to fight with them over the tree. "If I don't get three of those Apples, I'm kind of going to die next month, so if you don't mind..." I reached toward the tree, but all one hundred of Ladon's heads snarled and I stumbled away before one of the maws could swallow my hand. The four sisters laughed like it was all good fun.

"You will not partake of the tree, demigod. We will kill thee first." It was my turn to laugh. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Riptide, still in pen form. The Hesperides sisters glanced at it warily and then looked up at me. I grinned. "What is that, demigod?"

"Nothing," I lied. "Just a pen." They looked confused. "You write with it." I moved the "pen" in the appropriate fashion, and it felt a little weird maneuvering Riptide like that. But the sisters looked reassured.

"Why do you carry this 'pen,' demigod?" One of the sisters asked carefully, seeming the least trusting of the three. A light breeze swept by, causing their skirts to fly up a few inches. I noticed that the wind was picking up more and more by the second. It seemed suspicious.

"Alright," I snapped. "My name is Percy. You can at least call me that." The sisters didn't answer. "Fine, whatever. And I have the pen because sometimes I have to write something down."

"Why does thee carry it now, then?" prompted the skeptical one. I was getting fed-up with her.

"I like to fidget with it." I told her impatiently, looking back to the tree. This time, I ignored Ladon when he growled. "So...you don't care if I die a slow and painful death?" Hey, it was worth a shot. Of course, none of them made any movement suggesting they heard me. Figures. I twirled Riptide absently in between my fingers, and suddenly, the sisters realized what it was.

"That is no ordinary 'pen,' demigod." One said fearfully. "That was once Heracles' weapon. It is a sword." I smiled, and Laden lunged. I already had Riptide out, so the simple matter of uncapping it and sidestepping the attack was no problem. One of the heads snapped on my arm, but the teeth shattered when it met my iron skin. I slashed downward and took out three of Ladon's heads, but the remaining ninety-seven liked me even less. The dragon advanced, forcing me to duck and dodge the lashing heads. The sisters laughed and applauded.

"If thee can best Ladon, demigod, then will give thee what thine desires. But only if," The sister who had been nagging me before about Riptide called as I rolled away from one of Ladon's heads and straight into another.

Just because I was invincible didn't mean that all methods of dying were impossible for me. I can still die from disease and falling over the side of the cliff now looming only scant feet behind me was a sure-fire way to croak. I remembered that Luke Castellan, who had also had the Curse of Achilles, had survived that same kind of fall, but I was confident enough to risk it.

But Ladon had other ideas. He pushed me back farther and farther, his heads trying to curl behind me and sink their teeth into my back. I hacked off another ten heads, but it wasn't a big enough difference to count. Mostly, though, I rolled and sidestepped, trying not to let the heads find my weak point. Judging be Ladon's determination to reach my back, he already knew it.

I glanced behind him and at the sisters who now sipped their drinks while watching me over the crystal edges. One waved and smiled. "Try not to fall, Perseus Jackson! It would be a shame. After all, we did so like your namesake." There was a fair degree of giggling among the Hesperides at that, and I had to wonder what the first Perseus had done that impressed them so much. I resolved to find out so I could copy him.

Ladon's remaining eighty-seven heads growled in harmony, snapping me back to the present. They started twirling around me, enveloping me in a cage of writhing, living necks all intent on my death. I hacked furiously, desperately cutting them down, but in the end, the sheer volume was too much. I backed up even more, and soon the ball of my back foot pressed precariously against the edge of the cliff. I heard cracking and tumbling, but only assumed it was small pebbles broken free from the cliff and falling to the void.

Finally, I was getting the upper hand. Ladon seemed to be tiring, his heads snapping less energetically, his golden blood appearing to drain him. I laughed, spinning around and thinking I had him dead to rights. But while Riptide was in mid-arch, the cracking became louder and faster. I fumbled on my sword and glanced down at my feet and the crack developing around them.

When the ground dropped, for a split second I felt like one of those cartoon characters hovering over the canyon below, and then I plummeted.

It actually wasn't the first time I've ever fallen from unbelievably high places. When I was twelve years old, I leapt off the St. Luis Arch, smoldering with poison rushing through veins, down into the Mississippi River below. Luckily for me, however, as a son of Poseidon the fall didn't kill me. I landed softly on the water and it instantly healed me, saving me from Echidna, mother of all monsters. Then when I was fourteen, I was spit out of a volcano and fell just off the coast of Ogygia. If you're wondering, no, you won't find it on a map. And I'm not going to explain it to you.

As always, the thoughts running through your heads while you fall are not brave heroic coming-to-terms-with-death ones. It usually involves a lot of internal screaming and breathlessness. I was falling backward, like I had been after Mount St. Helens, so the inability to breathe wasn't as bad. My mind went blank for a moment as I just let myself fall. But then I remembered what my dad had told. If I died, I went back to Tartarus.

I started desperately scrambling on the side of the cliff, and my hand mercifully caught onto to something. It was a hole to deep to see through, which I knew was bad, but at the moment, I was too worried about surviving this that I didn't care. Ladon fell past me, roaring as he went, and I watched the water splash up when he hit it. Just to be sure, I caused a massive wave to smack down right where he landed to insure death. Then I started to climb back up.

I had to be in good shape in order to live the way I did. But scaling the side of a steep hundred or so foot cliff was not my idea of a breezy exercise. It was hard to find a decent handhold, and the ones I did find were slick with condensation from the sea. That, combined with the sweat on my hands, made gripping nearly impossible. But I gritted my teeth and continued to climb. Hours passed, and it didn't get any easier. The light changed from morning to night, and then started to lighten back to morning. I growled when my left hand dislodged a rock I had mistaken for a handhold and swung back down to my side. My right hand slipped and caught again on a rock a little bit lower, which I heard starting to crack, so I hastily moved it back. I set my speed and rhythm again; grab, grab, step, step, grab. It wasn't great, but I wasn't an Olympic Medalist, so I counted myself lucky I didn't fall to my death. Again.

Finally, I made it to the jagged edge and pulled myself over, panting heavily. I rolled over on my back as soon as I made it, laughing victoriously and fighting to remain conscious. How long had I been climbing? Hours, at the very least. Days, judging by the now morning hues adorning the lightening sky. Sam would be worried sick, probably already sent from Olympus in Zeus' impatience and eternal lack of tact. No one else would be worrying, aside from maybe my father, but he was sure to know I was still alive. But Sam's grief was the only thing that made me roll over onto my stomach and stand.

It was a slow, gradual process. My arms shook from the effort, making rising harder than it should have been. I propped myself up on my right elbow, which promptly collapsed underneath my weight. Then I tried again, to a first success. I then worked my knee under my stomach and pushed up off it, stumbling upright and staggering around like I was drunk. Which I had never been in my entire life. According to a recent conversation with my father, I had already turned twenty-one, meaning it was legal for me to drink. He volunteered to use the Mist in order to make some kind of fake ID so I could go into a bar and maintain my alias, but I declined. Why my father wanted me to start drinking I would never know, but I had not touched alcohol once in my life, and because of my stepdad before Paul, I never would.

Finally, I steadied myself before I fell off the cliff again. I drew in a deep breath and puffed it back out, focusing my vision on a black piece of rock on the ground so that it cleared. I was still feverish and weak, but I was better than before. I started back to where the Hesperides were doubtless waiting for me.

I found them laughing and drinking merrily by the tree, plucking apples from its branches and getting drunk on their juice. Needless to say, when they saw me in torn clothes and filthy, they jumped up. "We mistook thee for dead, demigod!" cried out my least favorite, surging to her feet and falling to probably conceal her anger at my survival. I smiled and she relaxed. "We were worried about thy fall."

"Didn't even sting," I assured her with false sincerity. I crossed my arms and kept my legs planted firmly for balance. I could not afford falling. "So, about our deal..."

"What deal?" they demanded in unison. I laughed.

"The deal we made while I was fighting Ladon. You're dragon is dead, ladies, and I've come to collect my reward." They seemed to be trying to remember otherwise, all bowing their heads and scrunching up their faces in thought. But none of the three daughters of Atlas could conceive anything other than the truth. My least favorite reached up and plucked a single apple from the tree. Each of her sisters did the same.

"Very well, Perseus Jackson." She said calmly. "But before you take from us thy prize, you must first kiss us each. Upon the lips," I froze. My heart started pounding in my chest, but not from my inexperience with women. Although I had only had one girlfriend in my entire life and that woman had attempted to kill me at the altar. Aside from her, I had kissed two girls each only once. But that was not my problem.

My problem was that the Hesperides sisters were as seductive as the Sirens, only a lot prettier. If I kissed them, I'd wind up like every other poor schmuck in the myths, lost and confused and drunk on their kisses. They'd overwhelm me in an instant, and although it wasn't the worst way to go out, I'd rather not go out at all.

I tried to think up something to redirect them from their plan. Anything to distract them would work. But there was nothing. I had to get those apples!

I took one tentative step forward, then another. On shaky feet, forced myself to the sister on the far left. Her grip was the apple was crushing, but the fruit did not get squished. Its golden skin just glinted in the morning sun, now high in the sky. This sister was red haired, with her curls falling over her shoulder. Her indeterminately colored eyes stared at me, and she perked her lips.

I glanced over at the other sisters and winced when I realized I'd have to kiss them too. Without any other means, I leaned into to kiss the nymph.

Her lips were like an aphrodisiac. I knew instantly why so many fell for her charms. Already weak and doubled over with exhaustion, I could barely make myself pull away. She looked innocently at me, and I easily took the apple from her grasp. She gave me a small bag to carry it in. Tucking it inside the pouch, I moved onto the sister on the far right. She was dark haired, with her locks cut short around her ears. The lustful look in her eyes made me recoil, but I bent in to kiss her as well.

Again, it took all of my will power to pull myself away again. I struggled to breathe after the second exposure to the Hesperides sisters' charms. When I finally stood before the third and final, about a foot ahead of her other sisters, her auburn hair cascaded down her back, I felt my heart speed up. Just being close to her made my insides burn with desire, and not the one for that apple in her hand.

The expression contained within the depths of her fiery eyes told me that this kiss would be both the best and the worst. I tried to snatch the apple away from her, thus escaping her lips, but her grip was too tight. Her plush red lips beckoned with a smile. "Come now," she chided. "You don't expect to get out of an innocent kiss that easily, now do you?" I shook my head and swallowed nervously. "Would you deprave me of the pleasure you so easily gave my sisters?" I noticed that she'd dropped the thys and thees. It somehow made her seem even older and more ancient. I gulped back my fear and leaned in.

I felt her breath against my face, warm and moist. I shut my eyes tightly, resolving to do no more than peck her on the lips and take the apple away. But when she crushed her lips to mine, I couldn't pull away. She trapped me to her, bodies pressing madly. My eyes shot open and I tried to pull away, but her right hand held the back of my head and I couldn't get away. My muffled screams were laughed at by her other sisters, and I could feel my mind begin to cloud and her magic take over.

She forced her tongue into mine, but no matter how hard I fought, nothing I did could break her hold. I was going under, melting under her fierce but tender touches. I couldn't do anything. The final Hesperides pressed me up against a tree and laughed against my lips. I wrestled with her, and the more I did, the tighter she held on.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. It wasn't much of a chance, but it was all I had. I relaxed, pretending to give in, and the Hesperides pulled away from me, grinning. "We are the origin for nymphomaniac, fool." She chuckled, walking back into the open arms of her sisters. The apple dropped to the ground and rolled onto my foot. I bent down and placed it in the bag, grinning like a madman.

"I know." I told her, and then ran toward the cliff, leaping off and into the wave rising to meet me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Alright, I've got a few things to say. First off, thank all those who did for reviewing. A lot of people have been telling me they're confused, mostly about the whole Percy abandoning Camp Half-Blood thing. Well, I'm going to let you all in on a little author's secret. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE CONFUSED! If you figured everything out in the first five chapters of the book, it wouldn't be any fun. But with Percy's leaving, this chapter will do a lot more to explain it, and if you combine it all with the little tidbits from other chapters, you should be able to get a pretty good grasp on the motivations behind **_**Percy's**_** actions. Hera, as always, is far more elusive than that. **

**One of the reviewers asked me a question regarding a certain well-known couple from the books. You can probably guess who without me telling you, so I won't. And the answer is yes, it's just going to take so bloody long to get to that part that I don't figure on making you wait for that answer. There are a lot of references in here that I deliberately put to throw people off. The parts from my story are briefly explained whereas the parts from the books are written out in detail. It's aggravating for me, too, but it's a technique a lot of author's use. **

**Please keep reviewing. You guys are awesome!**

Chapter Four

I Argue With Gods...Again

When the blue and white and green and other sea colors faded from my vision, I was standing perfectly dry in the middle of the throne room, each of the eleven gods watching me carefully. For a long moment, there was only silence, and then Hera rose and began to clap. The other gods were quick to follow, standing up and commending me on another job well done.

My lip curled into a snarl and I didn't try to conceal my distaste. "Stop!" I screamed, my voice cracking from strain. "Stop!" I repeated, more authoritatively. The gods fell silent and sat back down. "You don't have any right to tell me 'Nice job' after you stole my life from me!" I tossed the damned apples at Zeus' giant feet, fuming. "And don't try to argue it, either!" I shouted. "I know that it was a unanimous decision. It had to be. And I hate all of you equally for it, but there's probably a lot more for you, Hera." I said the last quietly, glowering at the Queen, who shifted in her seat in alarm. "You started this whole thing. _You_ called the vote deciding whether or not I'd be allowed to stay at Camp Half-Blood. I can understand the fact that you don't like me, Hera. But to chase me away from everything I loved goes beyond simple hate. It's evil and ruthless and better suited for your father than for you."

Now vented, my emotions began to die back down to smoldering embers rather than an all-out inferno. Or, more appropriately seeming my dad was Poseidon, from tsunami down to wave. I waited for the gods to blast me to bits, but no one did. They all looked guilty, actually. Except, of course, for Hera. "You have said yourself that you like your new life, Jackson. There was no need for that..."

"I might like this way of living, Hera, but I don't like it any better than before. In fact, I like it less. And I'm fairly sure it's an acquired taste because I can never go back to my old life. But that doesn't change how much I can't stand being in the same room with you. You took the only things I ever loved from me, and there can be no forgiving of that."

Hera still looked unremorseful. "You were the one who left." she reminded me.

"After you threatened to turn Camp Half-Blood into a-how did you put it?-oh yeah. A smoking crater in place of the demigod sanctuary if Percy Jackson ever steps foot in Camp Half-Blood again. You even told me my mother would die too. After you said that, what choice did I have but to run?" I retorted.

"But I did give you two days to leave." Hera reminded me in her usual unsympathetic tone. I clenched my fists and had to refrain from launching myself across the room at the stubborn, selfish goddess. She just continued to stare at me uncomprehending, pretending like she didn't understand my anger toward her or the rest of the gods.

"You knew full and well I couldn't stay those next two days and then still have to leave, Hera. It wouldn't have been fair to Camp. It was better the way it happened. Spur of the moment and immediate. Otherwise I would have had to drag myself across that barrier." I shook my head. "But that still doesn't negate your actions. Why can't you just admit you're sorry and be done with it?"

"Because I'm not," Hera sighed. "I did what was best for Olympus, and I cannot feel remorseful for watching out for my family."

"Your prefect family," I laughed. "The family that you've gone through so much trouble to maintain, and yet it still slips through your fingers." I could see a dangerous light flicker in Hera's eyes, warning me to stop before I regretted it. But I ignored it, feeling like I was finally getting the justice I deserved. Maybe just a piece, actually, but anything was better than wallowing in self-pity for the rest of my life. "You chucked your son off a cliff because you thought he was ugly. And he still returned to Olympus. You try repeatedly to keep your husband abstaining, but you've never once been successful. None of the gods toe the line, constantly embarrassing you, but you can't say anything. Because saying something would mean admitting that your _family_ was screwed up, and if there is one thing you will never do, Hera, it's admit that something is wrong. You work so hard to keep your family perfect, but in the end, all you're doing is living in denial. And frankly, doing that for eternity has to be exhausting."

Silence descended upon the throne room when I finished, the last of my voice echoing into nothing. All of the gods now stared at Hera, who focused her eyes on me with an unreadable expression. I matched glares with her, not backing down even as electricity started crackling around her giant form. Several minutes passed and nothing happened.

"Yes," Hera said suddenly, breaking open the silence with her own quiet and flooring response. I stared at her, stunned. "It is."

She stepped down from her throne and shrunk down to the size of a normal twenty-year old woman. I expected her to teleport like most of the gods did, but then she surprised me even more. She got up and walked out of the throne, leaving me too flabbergasted to speak.

Another lapse of silence passed, but this time it was my father who interrupted it. "Yes, quite. Son, there is one more thing the gods must request of you. You have to take these apples," he motioned at the golden-skinned fruits at his brother's feet. "And place them as an offering on the surf of Montauk Beach." I opened my mouth to argue, but Poseidon didn't give me the chance. "There is no discussion. I am afraid that I alone have the capabilities required to make the appropriate ingredient, and that ingredient has to be created undersea. There is no other way."

I clenched my fists; the anger recently extinguished now boiling again. "Montauk is _right there_. If I go, there's a chance..."

"There is a chance of discovery wherever you go, Percy. How many times has your path crossed with Artemis' Hunters?" I winced at the memory of the most recent meeting. A glance over at the auburn-haired Moon Goddess told she still hadn't forgiven me for punching Thalia. I didn't have a choice, though. She saw me surfacing from a lake completely dry. If I didn't do something, she would have contacted Annabeth and my carefully planned existence would have fallen apart. It was only through the manipulation of Mist on Artemis' part that the danger was avoided. Otherwise...

"That's different." I argued. "The Hunters are everywhere and the only one who knows me is Thalia. But Camp Half-Blood is filled with my old fri...allies. Any number of them could see me and recognize me. Not to mention, its summer! How many do you think are going to be taking that route back into the city?"

Poseidon rubbed his temples and shook his head. "You're forgetting your most valuable asset, son." I frowned.

"Huh?" I said stupidly. Alright, so I'm still not always entirely glib. It's part of who I am, deal with it.

"The scar," he prompted, and I self-consciously rubbed the disfiguring mark. He was right, of course. I looked nothing like my sixteen year old self now, except maybe for my hair and eyes. But there were a bunch of black-haired, green-eyed male demigods all over the world. Otherwise, my stature was entirely different. I had grown over five inches over the past six years, putting me at a ridiculous height of six-two, something my shorter companion was always jealous of. My face was rougher, less fair, and the skin was pulled taunt around the black gouge across my left cheek, making me nearly unrecognizable even to myself. I literally screamed the first time I saw it, and most people did too. Not even Annabeth Chase would be able to identify me now.

The memory of my old fri...ally made my heart ache a little. I missed her, whether I liked admitting it or not. But Annabeth was a figure in the past, and she was going to stay there. I didn't have time to be remembering what I lost forever. I had a life to live, however crappy that life might be.

"Are you sure it'll be enough?" I asked uncertainly. I couldn't afford any mess-ups on the scale. Erasing Camp Half-Blood's memory would be hard to do, even for Hera.

"Positive," my father smiled, which actually didn't reassure me. Apprehensively, I picked up the bag from Zeus' feet and dropped each of the apples back inside, tightening it and attaching it to my degrading leather belt. I waited for a moment, watching Poseidon, who just raised an eyebrow. Realization dawned on his face and he called out, "Hebe!"

The youthful goddess appeared, Sam in tow. Sam was rubbernecking around the throne room like she couldn't see enough, not paying attention to her older companion tapping his foot in the center of the thrones. When her eyes finally found mine, she squealed (she will argue the use of that word to describe her reaction. The fact of the matter is, she sounded like a mouse.) and ran up to me, a giant grin plastered to her face. I couldn't help smiling too as I bent down and spun her through the air. Sam was laughing happily when I put her back down, wrapping her barely-large enough arms around my middle.

"Hey munchkin," I teased. She glowered at me.

"Have you ever seen me dance around singing 'The Wicked Witch Is Dead.'?" She demanded, pulling away to cross her arms in defiance and superiority. I chuckled.

"I'm sure you do it when I'm sleeping." I told her playfully, jostling her inch or so free strands of black hair. She stuck her tongue out at me.

"Like you ever sleep,"

"True." I conceded, mocking her with a cheap bow. She slapped the top of my head and I pretended to be hurt. We both laughed, inciting a few chuckles from the spectating immortals in the room. After we were done with our comedic reunion, Sam started bombarding me with questions about where I'd been and what I'd done. I had to be careful what I told her with the gods listening, but Sam knew that I'd tell her everything once we were a safe distance away from Olympus. She was irregularly intent for an ADHD, meaning my story must have sounded pretty miraculous. When I told her about my fall off the cliff, she let out another squeak and punched me in the stomach. Surprisingly, the hit hurt. "What the heck?" I demanded. Sam fumed.

"Where do you get off falling to your death, Percy? You need to be more careful." I shook my head.

"You try doing better with a hundred-headed dragon trying to kill you." I challenged, and we laughed again. She started asking me questions again, but Zeus cleared his throat to interrupt.

"This is all rather touching," he said emotionlessly. "But I'm afraid that Mr. Jackson has a rather important job to do. Off with the both of you." Sam looked affronted, but I gave a curt bow toward the Lord of the Sky was led Sam out before she could say something disastrous. Within no time we were listening to the terrible elevator tunes, but this time it was some stupid thing from Led Zeppelin, so I ignored it.

I didn't realize how briskly I was walking until Sam was sprinting alongside me, looking concerned. I jumped when I felt her hand on my arm. "What's wrong, Percy?" she asked softly, like she was trying not to set me off. I didn't slow down. Sam would have to keep up.

"Percy," she prompted. "What actually happened on Olympus?" I stopped and breathed deeply, turning to look at her somberly.

"Just a few not so friendly words with my extended family, is all." I told her. Sam looked unconvinced. I gripped both her shoulders tightly, making her meet my eyes and saying the next sentence with the false conviction I had mastered only through repetition. "Seriously, Sam," I insisted firmly. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

If only I could believe that.

**Okay, so it's a pretty short chapter. But it should answer some of your questions about Percy's motivations for leaving. If it doesn't, tell me, because that has to be cleared up pretty early on in this thing. So, comments are welcomed and appreciated. Remember, you can tell me if you're confused, because I might have failed to convey something properly; but mostly it's deliberate vagueness on my part. Be patient and I promise all will be explained in time.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I Remember

"I still think that was unnecessary." Sam insisted, crossing her arms and turning her back to me. I groaned.

Sam had been badgering me about pickpocketing one of the security guards at the metal detectors leading into the subway for almost an hour. It was seriously getting old. Unfortunately, Sam still wasn't done.

"Don't you know stealing is wrong?" I scoffed.

"Sam," I lowered my voice so only Sam could hear it over the din of conversations on the subway. "You're a demigod. You could very easily be a daughter of Hermes. And you're running for your life. Ethics is no longer a consideration."

Sam opened her mouth to argue and closed it. She couldn't counter something that wasn't up for debate. Whether she liked it or not, my current way of life had kept me alive for five years and I wasn't going to stop now.

I fingered Riptide again, like I always did when I was nervous. It was a habit I had developed when I'd first discovered its usefulness. A magical sword that transforms into a pen _and _returns to your pocket when lost? It was by far my most valuable weapon, even if it did carry some pretty painful memories.

I leaned back in my seat as the train lurched along rhythmically, putting me into a reluctant sleep. Of course, I didn't sleep particularly well or restfully. Mostly, I dreamt about hell.

When someone hears that word, they usually think of fire and brimstone and Dante and other stuff like that. But that is one of the worst misconceptions mortals have adopted. There isn't a "Hell" as much as there's "hell." That doubtlessly makes no sense to you, and my attempts to explain it have been lost on pretty much everybody I talk to. But it's always worth the shot to make them understand what they're really saying.

The only "Satan" I know about is the Torturer. His technical name, translated from a language even older than Ancient Greek, is The Ancient Fear. As far as I know, that's exactly what he is. Fear is a primal response in everything, including gods and Titans. So the theory that it was birthed from the opening of Pandora's box is the biggest misnomer I've ever heard. All that did was give the Torturer on hold on the physical world, giving him the chance to start taking prisoners and holding them in Tartarus. I was, unfortunately, one of those prisoners.

I concentrated on my hands, trying to force the memories from my mind. As usual, it didn't work. I remembered the infinite number of "sessions" I had to endure while the Torturer cut into me and sang that evil tone. It was almost like "One, Two, Buckle my Shoe," only if the nursery rhyme had been psychotic. _"__One, two, three and four, watch them crumple to the floor._

_Five, six, seven, eight, ain't it fun to watch them break? Fear, dread, greed, and rage all fall into my big cage.__Screams, shouts, yells and cries, every day another dies."_

The Torturer gives a whole new definition to sick and twisted.

I was trapped in his regulated hell for a year, but to me, it was eternity. Time didn't make sense. Sometimes the time between sessions moved at a painstaking rate, others speeding by. And it wasn't a matter of perception. It was like Father Time had started shooting back tequila shots in that place. So by the time I finally got the hell out of there, it took me months to get my bearings.

I'd pretended to go insane. It wasn't hard to play the shattered, incoherent wreck; I was a hop skip and a jump away already. Once I placed sufficient doubt in his mind that I was capable of escaping, he lightening the security around my cell and switched his attention to his newer arrivals. Then all I had to do was scream like a maniac, draw in the monsters, and beat them senseless.

Although I fought against it, the memories rushed back in, flooding me with pain and numbness. Before I could warn Sam, my eyes rolled back and the side of my head smacked against a poll next to me. I blacked out to the sounds of alarm and surprise.

_I was hanging limply on the wall, suspended a couple feet from the ground with chains gnawing into my wrists. Blood welled from the lacerations. I was partially blinded by the sweat and blood mingling on my forehead and falling into my eyes, the black hair passed down to me from my father caked with red. My arms screamed in pain, the wicked symbols cut all along their skin newly reopened and oozing blood and the colorless plasma. _

_My head lulled to the right and I desperately wanted to sleep. I hadn't gotten any rest since my imprisonment here, and no matter how hard I shut my eyes or how long I simply hung there purposelessly, I could not let slumber win. It didn't help that my ears were filled with terrified screams and jingling chains as my fellow captives thrashed around during their own session. The Torturer was next door, meaning I was his next client. _

_I gave up on sleep and forced myself to look up at my jailer when he opened the cell door, white hot like the wall I hung from. The burns were more numb than anything else now. They didn't hurt, except maybe when moving opened up the scabs. Otherwise, as with a lot of the constant pain inflicted in Tartarus, my body had become so accustomed to the suffering that it almost basked in it. _

_The Torturer played with his knife, stalking toward me like a big cat after its prey. His pale, black-veined face was the stuff of nightmares, his opal eyes drilling into my estranged green. I wanted to escape. I had to escape, but every time another session rolled I was paralyzed. I had planned my freedom before, but never gotten past the chains on my wrists. They were impenetrable. _

_My eyes focused on his obsidian blade. It wasn't actually obsidian, but it was even darker than Stygian iron, the preference of Nico di Angelo, my younger cousin. The edge was jagged but sharp, easily slicing through the toughest skins. Including my own, allegedly protected by the Curse of Achilles. But such invulnerability did not matter in hell. It was null and void. _

_ The Torturer laughed and started reciting his evil nursery rhyme. "One, two, three, and four..." he cackled in a way that could only be described as evil as he redrew the lines and ancient phrases into my skin, tearing off my skin and starting on a fresh slab. I arched my back, red dancing across my vision, and struggled to remain conscious. Of course, in Tartarus I couldn't fall unconscious. It would take away from the pleasure of the Torturer if his prey lost consciousness._

_For some reason, I thought about Camp Half-Blood. I remembered Annabeth, her golden curls tied back in a ponytail and tucked inside her Yankee's cap. Something occurred to me that it was strange that I could see her when she wore the invisibility cap. Then I recognized the vision. I'd seen it when I was bathing in the River Styx and so close to death. "Come on, Seaweed Brain," she prompted with a laugh. Then I saw Grover Underwood, my satyr friend, nibbling on a tin can and looking worried._

"_Are you sure?" he bleated. I could tell something was seriously wrong. Then I saw another person, Nico di Angelo, looking solemn. _

"_I'm sorry, Grover." He said. "I checked. He's in...Elysium Fields." Grover looked up at him with tearful eyes._

"_You're lying." He observed. "I can feel. Is he really dead?" Grover stood and seemed to tower over Nico at just a couple feet._

"_No, I'm not. Percy's dead. I haven't told Annabeth yet." Nico sounded guilty, turning his head away in shame. Grover sat back down on a stump. _

_Tears started cascading down my face. "I wonder how your family's feeling." Taunted the Torturer. "Probably doesn't even care you're nowhere to be found. They all hate you, you know. Every last one."_

_Annabeth's face appeared again, and something told me I had to get out. For her. Even if I could never see her again, I owed it to her to keep trying._

_I remembered Olympus. Hera's warning that if I stayed she'd kill them all. I had taken so much from my friends; it was time to give some back. Even if they didn't know._

_Annabeth reached out to me, and I clasped hands with her._

_The Torturer leaned back to admire his work, and I let my unfocused mind wander. For the first, I had a plan worthy of Athena. "Pretty," I muttered believably, and the Torturer laughed._

"_Finally got to you, didn't I? It's about time." He cut me down from the chains and walked out, waving off the monsters and shutting the door._

_I bided my time, waiting for the right moment, and then screamed. It was an agonized scream, a perfect blend of the pain I had felt forever and insanity. And I was so close to insanity that it didn't matter. _

_The monsters rushed in, and I burst into action. I kicked one in the sternum and he stumbled backward, ducking a swinging axe and wrenching it from a Cyclops' grasp. The blade sliced through the monster and it burst apart, dissipating into nothing. Once a monster was killed in Tartarus, there was no returning. That Cyclops was gone forever. _

_Alarms blared, screaming in my mind and my ears as I ran for freedom. The two cells to my right looked older than mine, but some irrational urge made me throw a monster into one and shove a key into the other. I didn't stick around to see who I'd set free, though. They were probably both so completely incoherent that it didn't matter._

_I raced against time to the thin beams of sunlight I saw at the very end. The prisons got older and older the farther in you went, like the labyrinth, and at the very end was the Torturer first captive, Pandora herself. I waited at her cell and hesitated. She looked up at me, her shattered gaze breaking my heart, and I made myself set her free. I stopped a monster's knife from sinking into my shoulder blade and threw it at her heart. "Be free," I whispered and she finally was given the chance to be judged. Whichever way her Afterlife went, at least she had one. _

_I ran again, rolling under ten throwing knives that stuck, quivering, in the glowing white walls. I reached the stairs leading to freedom, monsters hot on my heels and the Torturer right behind me. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back, and I pushed him away. The physical contact between me and the embodiment of fear nearly doubled me over in terror, but I stood firm. The Torturer's sharp obsidian knife lashed out and sliced open my face from left temple almost all the way to the side of my lips. I screamed in agony and started up the stairs, but then they weren't stairs._

_They became a steep drop to the ground, a trapdoor at the very top leading to freedom. I fell, but at the last minute managed to grab on to the wall and keep myself from falling all the way back down to the Torturer's grasp. I grunted, but all those years forcing my way up the rock wall that spurted lava at Camp Half-Blood gave me the strength and endurance to climb. The white-hot walls burned me until my hand was just black, but I made it to the trapdoor and forced it open, my face bathed in sunlight and fresh air._

_I was free._

When I woke up, Sam was smiling at me from a seat next to me. I looked around and saw a paramedic checking the IV.

"I tried to tell them not to," Sam hissed in my ear. "But they wouldn't listen. It was all I could do to let them bring me with." I nodded, indicating my understanding, and snapped my fingers. A light breeze swept over the ambulance and the truck stopped. I looked intently at the paramedic and driver.

"False alarm," I told them. "I just fell asleep and you guys thought I fainted. I'm fine." Mortals fell for the Mist easily, and these guys were no different.

"You can go now, sir. You're fine." The paramedic said dazedly. I thanked him before the Mist could wear off (it does eventually) and ran out the back, Sam next to me.

Luckily, we weren't far from Montauk Beach. After paying a taxi driver a fair amount of money (courtesy of the security guard) we arrived by the cabin my mother and me used to vacation in.

As soon as my eyes focused on the old, worn-down cabin, I knew it hadn't been touched in years. Ignoring my better judgment, I walked inside.

There were cobwebs everywhere, sticking to my face and hair and hands when I brushed it aside. I wandered around absently, running my hand over the dusty, rotting walls. If I hadn't been invincible, I would have gotten a thousand splinters. The wooden panels were decaying right under my fingers, coming apart with barely a look.

Seeing my old vacation home in such disarray brought tears to my eyes. It was stupid. Percy Jackson might have loved this place almost as much as Camp Half-Blood, even as much as the demigod sanctuary, but Percy Jackson was dead. My name was Eric. It used to be my middle name, but now it was _who I was_. Monsters killed my alter-ego when he was sixteen, but I was twenty-one. I wouldn't let myself reminisce.

Discarded pieces of wood cracked under my feet when I turned sharply and saw Sam standing in the doorway, looking sympathetic. She was leaning against the door jam, which was cracking and falling apart from her weight; and looking oddly smug. I didn't understand why until I realized there were tears running down my face.

"So the famous, callous and unfeeling Perseus Jackson actually does have a heart." She joked playfully and I looked away, ashamed of the wetness on my cheeks. As nonchalantly as I could, I wiped the tears away with my fingers.

"Percy Jackson did have a heart, Sam. It's Eric who hasn't got one." Sam walked up to me, boards squeaking under her feet, and rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. For a long moment, we just stood there, appreciating the silence of the abandoned cabin and the peace of each other's company. Then Sam's small arms wrapped around my chest and I crouched down, letting her lay her head against my shoulder.

She pulled away after a split second, teary-eyed herself. She wiped it away. "You do have a heart..._Percy_." Her deliberate emphasis on my name stung, but it also seemed to heal a few wounds.

I stood to my full height again and looked around the old cabin. I remembered the last time I had been here, and it was after the Titan War. I had returned during the winter, when I knew few people would be passing through the frigid beach weather.

_It was only two months after the end of the Titan War and the cabin was still holding together rather well. As I expected, there was no one there but me. I walked over to the corner, by the window, and sunk down, remembering the night I had discovered my true nature. My mother and I had been vacationing as we always did-when we could manage the money, that is. After a while and my mother's marriage to Paul Blofis (who I seriously approved of)the trips could be more regular and less planned, but then it was all we could to get my abusive stepfather Smelly Gabe to let us of the house except to get money for his gambling and alcohol addiction. Grover had come to the door, a hurricane ripping through the coast, wearing no pants and showing his goat-heritage shamelessly. _

_A lot of things had followed that day. There had been heartbreak in store for me, laughter, pain, success, failure, and grief all waiting to be unwrapped. But everything had resolved itself in the end. At least, until the Queen of the Gods had banished me from the only real home I had ever known._

_You can't count on an apartment as home. Ever. Sure, during the other three seasons and school year, it was where I slept, ate, bathed, and lived, and it had my mother, but Camp Half-Blood was my real home. It was the only place I dared to be myself. Now I would never have that opportunity. I would be forced to be someone I wasn't until my dying day. _

_That was the first time I truly considered suicide. _

_The logic behind the thought was simple, and in my fragile state, it was incredibly appealing. I had nothing left. My only real keepsake from my life as a demigod was Riptide, and even that I had tried to chuck as far into the sea as I could. I wanted nothing to do with the useless sword. It meant nothing without Annabeth or Grover or Chiron. It meant nothing if there wasn't anyone to protect. What did it matter if the stupid hunk of metal just sat in my pocket forever and was never used except to occasionally vanquish an irritating monster?_

_I had a small pocket knife. I pulled it out of my pocket (the left one, not the one with Riptide) and studied it for an intent moment. I flipped up the blade. It was small, barely longer than my thumb, and not much sharper. But I didn't need great penetration. There was only one spot on my body that could really be hurt, and it wouldn't take much to end it._

_I stood shakily, tears ransacking my body as I pressed the switchblade against the small of my back. I hissed as the pain immediately hit me, tendrils of agony racing through me. I almost lost my nerve. But then my resolve solidified again and prepared to finally give myself the peace I had always craved but never gotten._

Hades, here I come._ I thought numbly. But before I could take it all away, I heard the cabin door inch open and I threw myself out the window. When I rolled to a stop, I saw Paul's Prius parked in front. My heart raced and I thought I had been seen. But the voices inside gave me no indication that they'd seen anything out of the ordinary. _

"_Sally, why are you even doing this to yourself?" asked a familiar man's voice. I heard a sniffle in response. "Oh, come here." He said. I knew Paul was comforting my mother in her grief and I sent a silent thank you to him._

"_I thought, maybe, if he was alive, he would-he would come back here." I closed my eyes. My mother knew me too well. She sobbed, probably into my stepdad's shirt, and I considered looking through the window. But I immediately discounted the idea. They might see me, and I couldn't bring myself to leave while my mother was crying for my sake. _

_But before I could turn and run, I heard Paul say, "You can stay for a little bit, Sally, but I think its best we don't come back here. For everyone's sakes," I heard my mother sniffle her affirmative. The door started to click open, and I froze, wondering what I was going to do if Paul saw me. Then my mother saved the day...again._

"_Wait," I heard the shuffle of feet and a purse being sorted through. The jingle of keys, swearing of a paper cut, and victorious shout of a discovery. "If he ever does come back," I heard the door start to inch open and ran for all I was worth, kicking up dust in my wake and cursing my stupidity. I should never have gone back to Montauk Beach. _

_That was the day I decided Percy Jackson was dead and didn't need to commit suicide._

Of course, since then, I've had frequent suicidal tendencies, favoring Anne's knife with enough certainty that it was only pure chance, like my mother's unexpected visit, that stopped me from following through. But Montauk Beach held unpleasant memories, ones I did not want back.

I hated remembering.

Then I recalled my mother's bustling. I hesitated. "If he ever comes back," she had said. What had she left? An old belonging? A map? A note? I shouldn't have looked. I doubted it was even still there after five years of sitting untouched. Probably as deteriorated as the rest of the cabin. But I couldn't not know.

Sam watched me curiously while I scanned under spider webs and searched for my mother's gift. I found nothing. I leaned back against the same wall and sighed. I had known my attempts would go unsuccessful, but it still hurt to realize I would never know what my mother's last act for me had been.

Then I saw it. It was so old, so ignored, and so...loveless. I forced myself up and dusted off the cobwebs. "Daughter of the World" was printed in beautiful letters on the front of the book. I flipped through the paperback, unrestrained tears running down my face. The author's name was S. Jackson.

My mother's novel sat in my hands, and after looking at the back of the front cover, I realized just how valuable it was.

_Mrs. Sally Jackson Blofis,_

_My sincerest congratulations on your publishing. It truly is an inspirational story, and the characters you portray in its pages...marvelous. In commemoration of this success, I have mailed you your first edition. And by first edition, I mean the very first paperback copy of this story. I am very sorry about the loss of your son, but I'm sure he would be proud of you. _

_Sincerely,_

_Your editor George Martins. _

My mother had left me her first book.

Sam materialized next to me, straining to get a good look at the book clutched in my hands. With shaky hands, I reached for the backpack on Sam's shoulder, and she let me have it. I tucked the last gift from my mother safely in a pocket and resolved that dyslexia or no, I would read that book.

I walked out of the cabin and dumped the golden apples into the surf. At first, nothing happened, but then a wave reached my feet and swept back out, carrying the apples of discord with them. It was finally over.

I smiled down at my charge, relieved that everything could return to normal. "Come on, Sam. Let's get out of here."

I was about to lead back the way we had come when I saw the horde.


	6. Chapter 6

**Here's a tip for reading this chapter. Listen to "Not Alone" by Linkin Park. More swearing and adult themes in this chapter, but you already read the bit with the Hesperides, so you're fine. This is an important, not to be skipped chapter. It is crucial to the storyline and cannot, repeat, cannot be missed or misinterpreted if the rest of the story is going to make any sense. Sam fans, beware. You might cry.**

Chapter Six

I Hate Running

The horde was comprised of something between twenty and fifty snarling, foamy mouthed monsters all strictly intent on their next meal. I imagined that a pack of rabid wolves would look similar after going hungry for a month or so. The dog-faced fish creatures called telekhines were all staring at me with a determined expression, like they recognized the son of the sea who had destroyed their stolen forge in Mount Saint Helens years before. Behind them, the ten-plus foot Cyclopes lumbered, slamming their clubs into their palms with animalistic smiles plastered to their deformed, ugly, one-eyed faces. Dracaena slithered to the front, squeezing past the telekhines as they favored me, and only me, with their dark glares.

Instinctively, I grabbed Sam and shoved her behind me, widening my stance and reaching for Riptide. But I hesitated. The monsters made no advancing movement. I could hear their raspy breathing, the snarls of hunger and anger carrying across the half-mile of distance. They were on the far side of the beach, and I stood somewhere on the mid-point between the two ends. They had quite a distance to cross before they reached Sam and me, and they didn't seem to be thinking about breaching it. All I heard for a long time was the harmony of Sam's and my hearts beating rapidly, the hissing wind coming from the ocean, and the panting heaves of air from our motionless enemy.

Then they charged.

"Holy shit!" I screamed, stumbling backward in alarm. For some reason I'd expected a bit more time before they went after us. Maybe a lead monster sending up the order, or a shout, or really anything except the immediate outpour of demons barreling toward us. Frankly, my swearing was anything but uncalled for.

Sam had already started kicking up dust by the time I started sprinting. I prided myself on good footwork and a skillful hand with a sword, but nobody could take on that many monsters without ensuring certain death. And although I personally had nothing against dying at that point in my life, I was not going to leave Sam without a guide or a helping hand.

I splashed through the surf deliberately, storing up as much strength and stamina as I could. With a breathless yell, I sent a wave of water into the center of the horde, but it barely made a dent. They were gaining on us.

Sam stumbled and I caught her before she face-planted. Together, we staggered into a level running speed and kept going.

It wasn't long before the beach ran out. I had quite a lot stored, but Sam hadn't had half as much training or energy storage as I had. She was pale and sloppy in her running, whereas she was normally more like a galloping gazelle than fleeing baby elephant. I tried my best to help her, but she swayed and turned unhealthy shades of green, alternating back to her colorless cheeks.

I concentrated on Sam while I was running, and that slowed me down considerably. Before I met her, I'd dealt with situations not unlike this one and I had never had a problem surpassing it. I only had one person to look out for; me. But with Sam, I couldn't double my efforts to get away and leave her as the main course. Nor could I stumble back and send her ahead for fear that even my death wouldn't slow down the charging horde enough for her to escape. So I was greeted with a considerable dilemma. How were we going to get out of this?

It wasn't long before we hit an untraveled road. There were tire marks in the dust, but they were faint and spaced apart, indicating a long period of time since someone traversed it. I recognized the surrounding area for a reason I could place, and it wasn't the direction we had come from. The monsters had blocked that exit. We'd gone directly opposite. Toward a thin gathering of pine trees. Something struck as familiar about the woodland area, but I didn't concern myself with details. Steering the weary Sam, I dashed into the trucks.

Sam and I had the added advantage of being a two person group. Although easily overpowered, we moved faster and more effectively than a massive mob like the monsters. Sure enough, when I risked a glance over my shoulder, the monsters were having a hell of a time breaking past the foliage and following us. We had slowed them down considerably, but they still weren't stopping. To get rid of them, I had only one choice. I would have to drown them.

I cast my mind out for a nearby source of water and felt the tug of the ocean on my gut. Letting out a triumphant shout, I altered my course and headed for it, the tiring Sam hot on my heels. I burst out past the trees and felt my legs and feet scream at me. I had been running at a constant sprint for longer than I had in a long, long time, and I was feeling the burn.

I couldn't help but commend Sam on her stamina and determination. She had less than half the experience that I did and yet she was keeping up pretty well. Or at least so I thought until she dove into the ground.

"Sam!" I screamed against my better judgment, alerting the horde to our whereabouts. I skidded to a stop and doubled back, turning over my young companion and seeing that the right side of her face was scraped and bloody from her plowing through the hard ground like that. Her eyes were closed and her breathing shallow. She was out cold.

I heard a crashing sound and decided that either a bulldozer was tearing through the forest or monsters had made some serious ground. I looked up and saw some faster telekhines already appearing in and amidst the trees. Left with no other option, I heaved Sam up and carried her Princess-style as I ran for the water I felt getting closer and closer.

Carrying Sam made the running even harder. She was a little lighter than a hundred pounds, mostly because neither of us got much food, but the added weight still slowed me, down giving the leading telekhines time to catch up. I placed Sam on the ground and drew Riptide, disintegrating three in a single fluid slash. More were coming, forcing me to pick her back up, more sloppily this time, and pour on the speed.

Finally, I felt the call of the sea rip at my intestines. I stopped at the bottom of a hill and staggered under Sam's weight. I couldn't go any farther. Exhaustion wore me down to practically nothing. I tried not to, but I dropped Sam onto the ground, falling on top of her in a poor shield.

The monsters were right there, breathing down my neck almost. I needed to rest and recuperate. I couldn't fight that many after running as hard and long as I just had. But I didn't have a choice. I drew Riptide again, hands and arms and legs trembling uncontrollably, and faced the army of monsters with as firm a look as I could. I picked one foot up over Sam's unconscious body and snarled, holding Riptide out two-handed. The monsters recoiled and looked from her to me. They got the message. If they got near her, I'd tear them apart so much not even Tartarus would be able to pick up the pieces.

Now it was the monster's turn to hesitate. Most of them, with the exception of maybe the dracaena, were dumb brutes. They didn't know who I was or what I was capable of, and they certainly didn't know I was Percy Jackson. But they did know that I was somehow associated with the wave earlier, and that I was pissed. Even wild animals know enough to recognize a serious threat when they see one.

But monsters can sometimes be even dumber than wild animals. A wild animal, unless starved to the point of insanity, will not attack a human unless that human cannot stand up and carries no weapon. Monsters will ignore even the most obvious signs of a healthy demigod carrying a sharp sword and blunder on ahead stupidly. So when they got over their hesitations and came at me, I wasn't surprised.

I spent the entire fight standing over Sam, kicking and stabbing and slashing at the monsters to hold them back. And I put a pretty good decrease in their numbers. I took out somewhere around thirty before an awe-wielding Cyclops hooked Riptide and yanked it from my grasp. I stumbled backward and landed on my ass, hard. Then the Cyclops bowed down and lifted Sam up from the back of the collar.

"No!" I screamed desperately, fighting to stand. Any moment now, Riptide would return to my pocket, but that wouldn't do either Sam or I any good if I couldn't carry. And my arm felt like it hadn't just been filled with lead, with had been filled with cement. Completely inanimate and useless as anything but a weight.

Sam's head fell forward; her eyes still closed and face so pale I would've thought she was already dead if I didn't see the steady rising and falling of her chest. The Cyclops, topping at about eleven feet, lifted her up to eye level and chuckled throatily. Even for his race, he was huge. My brother, Tyson, who was also a Cyclops, although a good one was only half his height. And Sam was dangling seven or more feet off the ground, helpless.

I struggled to stand, but my limbs wouldn't work. Gravity seemed more real than ever before, holding me there while the situation spiraled out of control. Tears were rolling down my face when I started pleading with the Cyclops. "Please," I begged weakly. "Take me instead, but leave her alone." The brute just laughed and drew a sword from his belt, which for him was really just a dagger. He raised it above his head and prepared to thrust down, straight into Sam's heart. "No!"

The sword started to descend, but then something whistled through the air and the Cyclops tensed like he'd been struck. He looked down at the stick protruding from his sternum. The wooden shaft of an arrow.

He burst apart into golden dust, covering Sam as she fell back down to earth. Suddenly finding myself again, I leapt into the air and caught her. All I could do was lessen the fall and stop her head from impacting. I heard several crunches and snaps indicating broken bones.

Panicked, I probed her neck for life. Her breathing was too shallow to tell for sure. Several moments passed while I groped around, petrified that the arrow had come too late. I said a silent thank you to Apollo for following up on his old favor last minute. He promised me after the Titan War that a well-timed arrow would show up when I most needed it.

Sam's neck didn't pound or thud or do anything but stay still. "Sam," I said breathlessly, poking her neck and trying to find the pulse. Where was it? She couldn't be dead. She was too damn young to be dead. "Sam, wake up, damn you! You are not going to die on me! Do you understand? You are not going to die!" I started CPR, which I didn't know very well except for the brief lesson given at camp during the days preceding the war. I pressed down on the center of her chest with the heels of my hands, working quickly and as hard as I dared without breaking a rib.

Moments passed and nothing happened. I kept trying to revive her, but she didn't stir. I adjusted her head, angling it and opening her mouth before puffing air into it, plugging her nose with my fingers. I waited for a sign of life or dramatic gasp for air as the movie always showed, but she didn't stir. I pressed my ear against her chest, listening for life, but I heard nothing.

"Help!" I screamed, although I knew it was stupid and useless to do so. There wasn't anyone for miles. I brushed her bloody hair from her face and starting CPR again. I still received no response. I started to panic, more than I was before. "Sam!" I cried, shaking her. I didn't have any ambrosia on me. Then I remembered the backpack.

I dug through it, discarding my mother's book, which at that point I neither remembered nor cared about. I emptied it out completely, digging around for ambrosia or nectar. I found our canteen, which barely had a few drops left. I needed it too, but at that moment I didn't care. I dribbled it into Sam's open mouth, nearly hysterical, and tried my best to wake her up. The nectar dripped down the side of her mouth and wasn't swallowed. I got out the energy bar from my pocket and tore open the wrapping, breaking off a piece and shoving it into her mouth. I worked her jaw up and down, making her chew it, but it hardly worked.

It had already been at least five minutes. Sam was dead. I couldn't believe it, though, and refused to let her die. I would have knelt there forever, trying to wake her back up, if I hadn't felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, for a moment thinking Sam's ghost was saying goodbye.

What I saw were sneakers. I followed up the pant leg to the sympathetic gray eyes staring down at me. Annabeth Chase grimaced.

"We've got her now."

**How evil do you reckon I am? Do you think Sam's actually dead? How did I do with the death scene? Good, mediocre, awesome? Feedback, people. I need feedback.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

I Break My Oath

"We've got her now."

The sentence echoed in my mind dully, like an echo through the Grand Canyon. By the time it reaches you, it's distorted and blended together, mostly just tones. And I recognized the tones like it was only yesterday since the last I'd heard them.

Annabeth was wearing the orange t-shirt of Camp Half-Blood, her necklace an additional seven beads since the last time I had seen her. It totaled to sixteen, now. Sixteen clay beads featuring highlights of each summer Annabeth Chase had been living at the demigod sanctuary.

Her blonde hair was a mess, sloppily thrown back in a ponytail like she'd done it in a hurry. Strands of golden hair struck out all over the place, the hair tie off to one side of her head with a rat's nest on the top. Her shirt looked it too had been thrown on hastily, wrinkled and messy, hanging on her shoulders and looking a couple sizes too big. She must have gotten hers mixed up with one of her bigger siblings. Malcolm, maybe. Or Dan. Were they still even at Camp or had they grown up and moved on?

Her grey eyes still held their usual mesmerizing quality that had attracted me to her in the first place. Her calculating logistical gaze fixated on mine, holding me there, both accusing and forgiving in their intensity. They seemed a little like a swirling storm, only one that was leaving, giving rise to the new day and hope that came with it. Annabeth's eyes were literally everything and nothing all at once, freezing me with their silvery sheen. But there was one thing they never ceased being: beautiful.

Her eyes stunned me for a moment, but then I realized Sam was being carried away. "No!" I snapped, lunging toward her. A shaggy brown-haired satyr looked at me in surprise, eyes widening when he saw me. For a moment, I thought he was Grover Underwood until I realized how young he was. He only looked about three.

I felt someone pull me back and knew Annabeth was restraining me. "Go, Alder. Tell your father we need his nature magic." she ordered. The little satyr ran off up and over the hill. I suddenly saw Peleus, the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece; stare at me intently while coiled around the gigantic pine tree at the crest of the hill. I instantly knew he recognized me. Thank the gods dragons couldn't speak English.

I thrashed weakly against Annabeth's hold, but I was deprived of about everything I could think of and probably a bit more, so there was little I could do as they dragged Sam across the barrier. The only thing I could think was that she would be incredibly confused when she woke up.

If she woke up.

She had to, of course. Sam was a tough kid, tougher than I had been at her age. She was difficult to injure or slow down, and impossible to kill. And besides, she was twelve. Twelve-year-olds don't die.

But Bianca di Angelo had been twelve when the automation claimed her young life eight years ago.

I shook my head. Sam wasn't Bianca. She had no interest in joining the Hunters, as Bianca had done. She was anything but a daughter of Hades. The again, Bianca hadn't exactly been a perfect candidate either, and Nico hadn't been anywhere close until his sister died...

No, Sam had to survive. Because Sam was all I had left.

I felt Annabeth lead me up the hill and resolved that after Sam woke up, we'd make a break for it. Until then, I was going to wait by her bedside night and day. When she woke up, I needed to tell her what was going on quickly so we could leave. Maybe if I didn't say anything to anyone, Hera would let me off. She had to understand. She liked Sam, didn't she? Who couldn't like Sam? I had to follow her. It was Sam.

Samantha Fisher had been the highlight of my life ever since I left Camp Half-Blood. After dying, escaping from the Greek Hell, and being betrayed by my fiancé, Sam had been the only thing good about my life. She'd made me laugh hysterically and cry in comfort. She'd given me someone to cuddle when there were difficult nights, and she'd helped me remember what it was like to be a hero again. She'd reminded me how good it felt to have a family.

I'd already lost my first and second families. I was not going to lose my third.

Annabeth was my forced leaning post as I lumbered down the hill, staggering after the archer carrying Sam. I tried to remember his name, but I was so far out of date that I couldn't remember a thing. Within very little time, we reached the Big House, where Chiron was sitting on his wheelchair and watching us. Annabeth and the archer, an Apollo boy, no doubt; altered course toward the purple Big House.

Sam was laid gently on a bed and Annabeth started leading me to another one opposite her, but I resisted and fell on the ground. Annabeth tried to pick me back up, but I shoved her and crawled to Sam's bedside, taking her cold hand. I looked demandingly at the Apollo boy; Will Solace, I finally realized. He started dabbing her forehead with a wet cloth and muttering under his breath. But it was pretty weak. He didn't believe she was even still alive.

"Annabeth," Will said, looking up at her. "We need to confirm..." Annabeth nodded and ran off, out the Big House doors.

I waited while Will dabbed Sam's face, cleaning up the scrap on the right side of her face. Sam's eyes did not flutter. She looked so pale...no. It was the lighting. Will looked pale too. I must have looked like the living dead. It was the lighting.

Her chest was no longer rising and falling. But maybe she was just breathing shallow. She'd always been good at controlling her breathing. She'd scared me before like that, sleeping stilly and without movement.

Her hand was cold. But it was cold outside, and we'd been running. I was cold too. The chilly sea breeze must have cooled her down considerably. Yes, that was it. She was just chilled down.

Will opened her eyes, and they stared on at the ceiling before the lids closed back over them. He pinched the skin on her right hand-the one I wasn't holding-and watched it slowly go back to normal. She was dehydrated. That was all. And the lighting made her look pale. Why was he checking her neck? She was fine. He needed to bring her around again so I could talk to her. Why was he pushing down her shirt?

"Stop that." I snapped, insulted for Sam. He looked up at me and opened his mouth angrily before closing it again and lifting his hand away. He held her wrist and watched the clock, then laid it back on the bed with a sigh. Why was he sighing? She was fine, wasn't she? Wasn't she? "She's fine." I prompted. Will looked at me sadly and shook his head. "She's fine." I insisted. "She has to be."

Will managed a weak smile. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe," Just then, the door burst open and I heard footsteps thunder behind me.

I turned and saw Nico di Angelo standing there, looking dumbfounded and bleary-eyed. He clearly had just woken up. His dark, almost black eyes flickered from Sam to Will to Annabeth, who was standing next to him. Dark hair in the fashion of a man who never washed it or brushed was ruffled on top of his head, his black shirt and dark blue stretch pants also retaining the impression of a rushed dressing.

Nico studied the girl intently, and I waited. For a moment, the slacking expression on his face made my heart stop, but then he smiled. "She's alive, but barely. She doesn't have long."

I knelt beside her, eyes shut tight and praying to every Olympian and minor god or goddess on Olympus. I started making up gods in my desperation. Sam was still alive. And she was going to stay that way.

"Sam," I said shortly, opening my eyes. "Wake up."

The little girl's green eyes flickered open to see my own same-colored watching her carefully. "They dead?" she asked weakly. I laughed and hugged her.

"Yeah, Sam. They're dead." I almost broke down in relief right then, but I remembered where I was.

"Where are we?" she whispered in my ear.

"Camp Half-Blood," I hissed back quickly before Will breached the distance. "Eric," I felt her nod against my shoulder and knew the knowledge had been passed on to her.

"Excuse me," Annabeth cut in. "If you don't mind me asking your names..."

"Sam," she said quickly. "I'm Sam. And if you ever call me Sam or Samantha, I will gut you like a fish. Got it?" Annabeth laughed, understanding the emptiness of the threat. She reached toward her, but I slapped her hand away. I redirected my eyes to hers. She hadn't recognized me yet, and the farther I led her away from my real identity, the safer she would be.

I stood, guarding Sam and snarling. Annabeth stepped back. "And if you touch either of us ever again," I added with a slightly crazed grin. "I will make your last few minutes of life the very definition of hell. Got that?" Annabeth reached for her knife and stopped.

"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked, almost fearfully. But no, the tone in her voice was caution. Annabeth didn't scare. Ever. I just responded with a wider grin and the expression on my old...allies face turned from confusion to shock. "I understand you've gone through a lot, but..." I laughed darkly.

"You have no idea." Annabeth watched me carefully. She turned her attention back to Sam when she realized I didn't have a weapon and she did.

"Does he do this a lot?" Sam chuckled behind me and I turned.

"I still don't know what happened to Daisy." She told her. Annabeth raised an eyebrow, and I made myself smile. Sam was making something up, and I had no idea what it was. "A woman on the side of the street who tried to give me a cigarette. When Eric caught up with me, he threw a fit and dragged her into the alley. When he came back out, she wasn't with him."

"I was just teaching her how unwise it was to give little girls cigarettes with people like me nearby." Annabeth gulped, understandably so. I was overselling the crazy angle, but whatever worked. It occurred to me that they wouldn't let either Sam or I go anywhere if they thought I was a danger.

Annabeth breathed deeply. "So you're Eric?" she inferred carefully. I smiled evilly and she started backing up out the door. "Yes, you are. Malcolm wants to talk to me, so I'm going to..." She stumbled out the doors and all but ran away from me. Will was right behind her, but Nico stuck around, watching us both.

"What?" I demanded. He eyed me suspiciously.

"You've got a different aura." He told me. I stared blankly at him.

"I've got a what?" I scoffed, pulling Sam closer. Nico had a nasty habit of freaking me the hell out whenever he got in a particular mood. When he was depressed, the shadows clung to him. When he was angry, the shadows clung to him. When he was happy and smiling, the shadows clung to him. And like right now, when he was suspicious the shadows clung to him.

Pretty much, the shadows always clung to him.

"It's like you're not completely alive." He explained shortly, making me raise an eyebrow. Sure, I died a long time ago, but there was no way that stuck around. Was there? Nico took a step forward and placed his hand on his sword. "I don't like you." He told me simply.

"Funny," I said. "I can't seem to like you either." Nico narrowed his eyes.

"I don't like most people." He went on, fidgeting with the hilt. "I don't hate most people either." A ghost of a smile played across his face. "I hate you. If you ever touch a single person here, if you threaten or scare, if you make one of them fear you, I will not stand for it. These people are my family, and whatever you get away with out there," he nodded toward the outside world. "You won't get away with here." He drew his sword and rested the tip against the ground. "I'm willing to give you a chance, however. Because I was a lot like you when I got back here. And people were naturally scared of me. They might treat you the same way. I don't know. But it didn't take long for me to realize this place was safe and I could relax. That took me about two months. If in two months, you continue treating people like shit, I will make sure you learn your lesson."

I laughed dryly and completely unafraid. Nico looked taken aback. "Let me tell you something, kid." I told him, advancing a great swiping step and slamming my palm down on the back of his hand, stopping his sword and seriously freaking him out. "I am a rare breed in this world. I'm neither predator nor prey. But if you push me beyond my limits and you no longer tread the line between ally and enemy, I won't have any reserves about cutting down on the population issue, if you get what I mean." I leaned in and kicked Nico's sword to the side. "And I'm going to act however I damn well please. I'm a grown man, legal drinking age even. Not even my mother can tell me what to do anymore, and I sure as hell am not listening to some punk who thinks a cool looking sword and fancy words is going to scare me. Nobody's going to get hurt unless they overstep their bounds. And if they're afraid, tough shit, because I'm not going to walk on eggshells just because you people have fragile egos. Nor am I going to walk here. I'm leaving, now. So if you would kindly get out of my way, I'm going to get out of your hair."

I smiled and added. "But if you stand in my way, you should know. I've got a promise to keep, and I can't keep it here."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Hera Gets Her Revenge

After shoving past a shocked and speechless Nico, I ran out the doors, Sam right behind me. She was chewing the energy bar I'd given her. Unfortunately, we couldn't stick around long enough for her to properly recover, so she had to settle for the stupid nectar-filled bar.

Suddenly a thought occurred to me and I whipped around, surprising Sam so much she fumbled on the bar. "What?"

"Do you actually want to do this?" I asked suddenly, making Sam eye me like I'd lost my mind. A single eyebrow rose in answer to my question. "Do you actually to go back out onto the streets instead of staying here?" Sam chuckled weakly.

"You can't stay, Percy, remember?" She hissed, glancing over her shoulder. But no one was nearby. "Hera would kill you and everyone else. We've got to get out of here." I stared at her and felt my heart get ripped apart. I knew what I had to do, and it was tearing apart my world at the seams. Again.

I crouched down and gripped her shoulders firmly, making her meet my eyes. Sam's expressions started to darken, but I laughed. I hated seeing her sad. She looked too old when she was sad. "I have to leave, Sam." I agreed. I waited to Sam to get it. When realization dawned across her face, I continued. "But you don't." Sam shook her head, tears beginning to spill past her eyelashes onto her cheeks.

"No," she breathed.

"Camp Half-Blood isn't the home for anymore, Sam, but it was a long time ago. And it can be for you. You don't deserve to..."

"No!" she cut me off loudly, attention being drawn. I looked around at the faces of demigods, who were gathering around in curiosity.

"Sam..." I warned, but she wasn't listening. She broke my hold on her shoulders and stepped back, away from me.

"I'll follow you. If you go without me, I'll follow you. How long do you think I'll last now? I smell like you!" Her cries were growing louder and louder, people being drawn in to watch the argument. I reached toward Sam, but she slapped my hand away, throwing the backpack at me.

"Sam, please," I pleaded, trying to calm her down. "You're a strong demigod. The streets are dangerous for you..."

"They're dangerous for you, too!" she countered despairingly. I shook my head and grabbed her hand.

"I know what I'm doing." I told her softly.

"And I don't?"

"No, I didn't..." I hesitated, and then said. "No, you don't. You're just a kid, Sam." The mention of her age had the desired effect. Sam had never behaved like a twelve year old, and thusly had never appreciated me reminding her of her inferior stature and years. So calling her a kid was about the worst insult I could have said.

She pushed me away.

"Fine," she snapped. "Take your damn supplies and get out! I never liked you anyway. You were just a way to survive! Go! Go on then, if I'm just a kid. You don't want a mere _child_ wearing you down, now do you? After all, you've got monster kills to rack up by the hundreds. What would you need me for?" Tears were streaming down her face. I was grateful that in her anger she hadn't called me by my name. Otherwise the purpose for my hasty departure would be lost.

I wanted to say something, to comfort her and tell her she meant more to me than that. But then again, that would succeed in making her want to come again. And if she decided she didn't like Camp Half-Blood, she knew where the Albany safe house was. She could get herself out perfectly fine. And I didn't think Camp Half-Blood would be a bad thing for her. She always preferred to sit at the small trashcan fires we made or sit in comfortable chairs and beds. She wasn't that much of an adventurous spirit. But her fiery demeanor would only flourish under Camp Half-Blood's instruction. It could do nothing but good for her, and I knew it.

She knew it too, even if she didn't want to admit it.

I jogged up the hill briskly, wanting to turn around and see my old friends...my old allies, I told myself firmly. You can't have friends anymore. But I wanted to see them again. I wished I could apologize and explain everything to them. But I couldn't. And I never would.

I turned around, ignoring Peleus, who whimpered when he realized I was leaving, and took a sweeping step past the barrier. The air around me rippled and I was in front of a strawberry farm, completely unremarkable. Except for the fact the goddess of marriage was standing right in front of me.

Hera smiled, her long black hair falling over her shoulder. My heart stopped. I wasn't particularly afraid of Hera herself, just what she could do. She had vowed five years ago that if I ever returned to Camp Half-Blood, she'd turn it into a smoking crater in the ground.

And it appeared she had come to deliver on her promise.

**I know it's short! You don't have to point it out, honestly! But this was the best point to leave off on, and I'm not going to drag on a particular scene just because I want the chapter to be longer. I do that in my novel enough, thank you very much. **

**Please review. I sound irritable and aggressive, but I'm not. Okay, I am, but not when it comes to reviews. Quality is answered with quality, just so you know. I love the people who review, and if I notice a particular trend as to who is commenting, I might take your suggestions into consideration. Or tell you a particular non-important detail ahead of everyone else. **

**So, Kaitie85383, you are the first lucky candidate for this. Seeming you've been very dependable as of late about making very good, dependable reviews, I'm giving you the chance to ask me a question about either No More Death or The Forgotten Fear, not important to the storyline (so you might want to ask multiple ones or order of desperately wanted answered to moderately so, and I'll answer the first that isn't going to ruin it for you.) and I will privately message you the answer. It will only be one question and answer though, sorry. **

**As for the rest of you, comment with really good replies and regularly and I'll give you the same chance. I don't play favorites unless those people deserve to be favored. So there's your incentive. REVIEW! **


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

I Lie Some More

As soon as I saw her, my hand darted toward my pocket and pulled out the pen that was so trusty in times of distress. I gripped it firmly in my hand, curling my fingers around the slender object so tightly my knuckles started turning white. My feet started moving diagonally left, hoping to get around her and run before she could summon the storm that would, if I wasn't fast enough, level Camp Half-Blood.

"No," I breathed, closing my eyes. My leg muscles bunched, preparing to run. "Hera, please. Don't do this. They don't deserve it. You can kill me. You can send me back to Him. But don't hurt them." I fingered the Riptide's cap, every muscle in my body prepared to fight the Queen of the Gods with everything I had, as long as it meant saving my old friends and now, Sam.

Wait. What did I care for Camp Half-Blood now? It was my painful, hard past, and I was happier now. But it was that heroic, almost brotherly streak I had that drove me in front of a bullet aimed at Sam or to the forefront of an army. And now it was driving me to give up my life and my sanity for the sake of people I hadn't talked to in five years.

I know I'm masochistic.

Hera's eyes gleamed the way she did whenever she decided she was being incredibly merciful and helpful. Usually, however, that gleam meant certain death or even worse. I prepared for an explosion, or more likely, an implosion, but nothing came. I shut my eyes tight, bracing, but no pain came. No earth-shattering kaboom filled my ears. Instead, I was greeted with silence. I opened my eyes carefully, expecting to see Charon in front of me, wearing his Italian suit, but all I saw was Hera, eyes still gleaming and mouth pulled up in a pleasant smile. But her grin was simultaneously heartless and kind, displaying her contradictory personality. Sometimes, Hera could be incredibly helpful and compassionate. Other times, she was stone-cold and insensitive.

I wondered which it was going to be today.

"Hello again, Jackson. Lost time I saw you, you insulted my family and my capabilities of properly managing those within it." She was still smiling, like she commenting on the weather rather than my uncalled-for outburst on Olympus. "Lovely day, isn't it?" Her expression instantly darkened. "You were supposed to stay away."

Lightning crackled around her, her form beginning to flicker. I turned away, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, Hera's true form illuminated the hillside before dying back down to her human appearance. She looked displeased.

"I tried, Hera. I did. But Sam..." Hera laughed darkly and took a sweeping step toward me, her brown eyes flashing.

"Oh yes, the unclaimed Samantha Fisher. You did take quite a liking to her when you two met, Jackson." I narrowed my eyes, not backing up despite Hera's obvious intention to make me do so. Adopting the arrogant air I had perfected over my time on the streets, I started playing with Riptide, just as I had done with Ares. Hera looked unaffected until I smiled, accenting the deforming on my face, to which my continued anonymity was probably attributed. Annabeth would have surely recognized me were it not for the fact I looked like a monster myself now.

"I not sure what you mean, Hera." I said nonchalantly. "Sam's a good kid, if that's what you mean." Hera laughed like I was being stupid.

"We both know your record with choosing trustworthy individuals hasn't been the best of late, Perseus. Take Anne, for instance." My heart felt like it was being wrapped in a vice at the mention of my ex.

"Anne was one mistake." I said quietly. "And it's a mistake I won't make again." My left hand drifted behind my back, where I had a single knife tucked. I brushed over the handle, eyes closed, remembering my promise. It was a promise that I would follow through.

That only seemed to incite another laugh from Hera, who leaned back away from me. "I'm sure your judgment has improved tremendously, Jackson. You're certainly not the man you were at sixteen."

"It's Eric." I told her carefully, enunciating every syllable. "And I wasn't a man when I was sixteen. I was still a kid back then." Another laugh. Hera was starting to sound like the Torturer, which only made fear boil in my chest. But I made myself stand firm, meeting her chocolate eyes with confidence.

Hera's smile was wider now. "Of course. A boy who had already been forced to save the world twice being thrust into the middle of a divine war is certainly no match for even the least of men." Hera thrust out her palm toward me and I went sprawling back across the barrier, landing hard against the pine tree. Peleus looked alarmed, watching me with golden eyes the same color as his scales.

"What are you...?" I grunted, trying to stand, but Hera's palm was now facing downward and I was held in place by an invisible force.

"I'm giving you a second chance, _Eric_. Prove that you are not the person you used to be. Prove that I am in no danger of having to destroy this important sanctuary for our children. You will stay here for two months, and if after those two months you feel no hesitation or reluctance about leaving again, then your _allies_ will remain unharmed. Fail to do so, hesitate for even a second and I will reduce this Camp to ruin. Once again the fate of heroes rests on your shoulders. The only question now is: what will you do?"

And with that, Hera was gone. She burst into a cloud of sparking white light; not her true form, but still a powerful blast. I stared at where she had been standing in shock, still going over her words in my mind.

"_You will stay here for two months..."_

"_If in two months...I will make sure you learn your lesson."_

I had two months to prove to Hera that I wouldn't fall back into my old patterns. And I had two months to make sure Nico di Angelo didn't kill me while I spelt. That seemed to be a conflicting dilemma.

With difficulty, I forced myself to my feet and saw a ratty book lying on the ground. "Daughter of the World." I picked it up, brushed off the grass, and tucked it in my back pocket, feeling ashamed of it. I had just promised Hera I was different and didn't even like Camp Half-Blood, but I was keeping a book of my mother's. I wasn't off to a good start, but I doubted throwing it away would repair the damage done at all. So I kept it.

I turned back to Camp, people bustling about toward an open area just a little ways from the cabins, now a complete omega. I took a deep breath. I had to mingle. So I jogged toward the open pavilion.

It was the Mess Hall. By the time I got there, Chiron was already concluding his nightly announcements before he called after the Harpies who would deliver the preferred meals for everyone. "And on a final note, we have two new campers. Annabeth tells me their names are Sam and Eric." Chiron looked around expectantly, and Sam timidly rose from the Hermes table, looking self-conscious. Chiron looked beside her, obviously expecting to see me.

"Eric left. Without me," Sam added the last bitterly and sat back down. Chiron looked alarmed and glanced at Annabeth, who was studying her dinner plate intently.

"Didn't you explain it to him?" Annabeth didn't look up.

"I didn't have time. He...let's just say he isn't the friendliest man I've ever met." I took that as my cue and entered the Mess Hall confidently, standing behind a shocked Sam.

"If you want friendly, I'm not your guy." I said darkly, focusing a cold and superficial glare at her. _Remember. You have to hate her. So start. Now._ "Is there anybody who cares to tell me what the hell is up with the animal that looks suspiciously like a dragon wrapped around a tree? And while you're at it, have a go at telling me what this place is."

Sam looked up at me, surprise spread across her face. I mouthed_ Later _and she nodded understanding. She slid over so I could sit down, which I promptly did.

Chiron cleared his throat and focused on me. "I don't know what this confusion is about you attempted to leave, but..."

"I don't stay in one place very long, but I decided to give it a shot for Sam here." I nudged her playfully, and she laughed, smiling at me gratefully. I flashed a brief grin, too fast for anyone not watching for it to see. I turned my attention back to Chiron and crossed my arms. "Oh yeah, and I've been meaning to ask. What kind of experiment gone wrong on you? Because I'm fairly sure normal people don't have a horse's ass."

There was a shocked gasp that spread through the campers and I received several dark glares. Good. If they hated me, they were less likely to recognize me. Chiron cleared his throat loudly and fixated me with a very stern look. I almost recoiled, except I knew Chiron wouldn't ever hurt a demigod. And I wasn't afraid of being hurt seeming the Curse of Achilles protected me from most injuries and death was at the top of my bucket list. **(Anyone else catch the Oxymoron there?)**

"In the future, Eric, I would prefer is you refrained from public cursing. There are some very young campers with us. And in answer to your question, I'm a centaur. My name is Chiron." I laughed deliberately.

"Granted, I'm not renowned for paying attention in school, at least when I was in it, but I'm fairly sure that 'Chiron' is the alleged trainer of Hercules. And that he doesn't exist. And even if he did, he'd been long dead by now." Chiron raised an eyebrow.

I realized that all eyes were trained on me right now, judging me on how I was taking the news. This was it, then. This would decide whether or not Hera took her revenge. I couldn't fail. "Can you think of a better explanation as to how I have the lower body of a horse?" Chiron inquired curiously. I noticed a certain glint in his eyes. He was impressed. Shit.

I shrugged. "Maybe I ate the wrong mushroom." Snickers rang out through the crowd. Damn. You're not supposed to be funny, Jackson. Get your head out of the past. "Or maybe I'm dreaming. Either way, I'm starting to think I don't want Sam here after all."

That got the desired the effect.

As I placed a hand on her shoulder and stood to leave, automatic chaos erupted. "No!" Chiron cried over the clamor. I stopped and turned, looking skeptical.

"Percy," Sam hissed out the side of her mouth. "What are you doing? Does this mean you're bringing me with after all?" I shot her a "be quiet" look and she fell silent.

"Yes?" I asked innocently, falsifying it deliberately. Chiron was starting to look like he wanted me to leave, but Sam wasn't a problem. She needed to stay, and I would make sure of it. I just needed her to pull it off.

The centaur puffed up with a deep breath and sighed its release. "You both are demigods, or half-bloods. This place is Camp Half-Blood and it is the only safe place in the world for people like you."

"Both my parents are Caucasian. I'm no half-blood." I told him, sticking to the act. Chiron was losing patience, which he never had before. Apparently I was doing a good job of alienating people. And myself.

"But do you know both your parents?" he countered. That was where the acting came in.

Half-bloods first discovering their heritage were more inclined to be skeptical, but once something was pointed out about them that they hadn't shared, it made them stop for a moment. I had been the same way, except my predicament was a little different than most. I was first introduced to Chiron as my Latin history teacher, meaning I thought he was a disabled professor at Yancy Academy in sixth grade. But when I got to Camp for the first, I had a similar reaction. Now I had to find a way to portray the bored sarcastic asshole while simultaneously giving the impression of a man who had just been beaten at his own game. It was a hard middle to reach, but the reaction I got told me I nailed it.

"How did you know that?" I demanded. I decided to throw in a little paranoia to really tie together the character. I had always been a fair actor, which was the reason I was still alive and Camp Half-Blood wasn't ash and smoke right now. Now this was testing that raw talent to its limits. "Have you people been spying on us or something? How did you know I was an orphan?"

Chiron looked taken aback and a little remorseful. Several people let out sympathetic groans, and more than a few Aphrodite girls were watching me with more lust in their eyes than I was comfortable receiving. To my surprise, it wasn't Chiron who answered. It wasn't even Annabeth, who looked like she was ready to intercede. Instead, it was the one person in the entire camp I least expected to be helpful.

"Everyone here knows what it's like to be raised like that. Well, not everyone's an orphan, and you aren't either." I stared at her, hiding my shock behind the mask of disbelief.

"I was raised in an orphanage." I told her. "The closest thing to a family I have is Sam. And I'm the same for her." Sam nodded helpfully, if a little too enthusiastically. Neither statement was a lie. We _were_ like family to each other, and Sam had been forced to run away from her abusive stepfather when she was ten. "I was dropped off on the police station's doorstep when I was few weeks old, and whoever the whore was that calls herself my mother isn't. Because I never had a mother. And don't even talk to me about a father figure."

I felt my heartstrings snap a little. My real mother, Sally Jackson, was an angel. There was a reason she'd got Poseidon's eye, and it wasn't just her clear sight. She was a good, dedicated mother who did the best with what she had, but for her sake and the sake of Camp Half-Blood, I couldn't reveal that to them. Any correlations between me and Percy Jackson were an avenue for discovery, and that was one thing I couldn't risk. So I maintained the carefully controlled air of a man who'd been through hell, which I had, and hadn't come out safely or sanely. And I hadn't done that either. Just because I was embellishing on some facts didn't mean that Eric and Percy Jackson were not one in the same.

Because they were.

And they weren't.

Percy Jackson was a selfless, heroic, and ignorant boy who didn't understand just how evil the world, and the gods; could really be. He would throw himself in the line of fire for people he barely knew and went on instinct rather than logic and calculation. He would never have survived were it not for the brains of Annabeth Chase, with whom he had fallen in love.

Eric was a completely different person. He was twenty-one, cold, hard, calculating, and a realist. He didn't believe in happy endings or fairytales because they weren't true. And the reality of his world was dark and depressing. Whereas Percy Jackson was a man without boundaries and a crowd of friends, Eric lived within the limits of veracity and possibilities and lived in that world on his own. Sure, some people came in his fence from time to time, but they were all visitors that he never saw or spoke with again. Percy Jackson was a happy-go-lucky jokester and Eric was a tortured soul wandering through the streets of America.

But at the same time, they shared the same fatal flaw. Loyalty made them weak and vulnerable, friendships taking down the carefully constructed walls around them, built to protect, but when they came crashing down, it did nothing but hurt. But Percy Jackson hadn't cared about his vulnerability. He'd shown who he was for better or worse and didn't care if people hurt him. Eric was a shielded man who never stepped to heavily out of fear for getting rooted in a place he didn't want to be in. He had a mask that he maintained and watched to make sure it never failed.

They were two people who could never be more different. And at the very same time, they were identical in every single way.

"Look," Clarisse said, interrupting my thoughts. "One of your parents is a god. A Greek god, to be exact. And yes, they do exist. They still fall in love with mortals, and we're the result. You and Sam are two very different people." I scoffed.

"I've known that right along. But being different doesn't automatically mean I'm the son of a god." Sam nodded, backing me up. I glanced down at her to see how well she was holding up with the string of adlibbed lies. So far, her nodding and grunts of agreement were pretty believable, but she was starting to shrink into herself fearfully. I nudged her and she jumped, looking up at with affronted eyes. I motioned as subtly as I could that she needed to straighten up her back and complied immediately. I gave her a curt nod to tell her she'd succeeded.

No one else noticed the exchange.

"You're right." Someone cut in. I turned to the source of the voice and saw Nico di Angelo, leaning against a column. I didn't remember it from before, so I assumed it had been one of Annabeth's architectural innovations to Camp. "It doesn't. But coupled with dyslexia and ADHD, it's a proof positive."

Nico was smiling pleasantly, but I could tell the threats voiced earlier had left him more than a little wary of me. I pursed my lips nervously. I wasn't sure if I could pull this off. "Oh, if it isn't the emo boy from the hospital." Nico lip curled into a silent snarl and I grinned at him.

"I'm not emo." He told me shortly. "And I'm not Goth. I'm a son of Hades." I narrowed my eyes.

"That's weird. I took you more for a Nyx character personally." Eyes turned. I realized, too late, what that must have sounded like and hastened to correct my mistake. "What?" I demanded. "I do know some of the myths, you know. I'm not a complete idiot." Then I redirected my attention back the attitude problem named Nico di Angelo. I crammed numbers in my head quickly and realized that he was, at the youngest, seventeen now. Probably already turned eighteen, little brat.

Nico waved off the correction lazily. "No. My father is Hades."

"Oh really?" I asked incredulously. "Then who's mine?" That only earned me another predictable smile and dry laugh.

"Nobody knows...yet. We will soon, though. You are way past thirteen, probably in your twenties." I nodded, rolling my eyes. "Whoever your godly parent is, they'll claim you at the campfire at the latest. Until you're claimed, we haven't got a single way of knowing." Nico pushed off the column and walked forward, swinging a cocky leg over the bench and sitting down for dinner. I noticed small skeletal animals starting to emerge at his feet. My eyes narrowed and Nico's smile got bigger.

My fists clenched. Nico had overstepped his bounds where I was concerned several times, so I had absolutely no problem butting heads with him. My problem, however, was the fact I couldn't respond in kind to his threats. If the situation had been different, I would have summoned a bit of water and splashed him in the face, but I couldn't. Because if he found out I was a son of Poseidon, the rest would fall into place.

I forced myself to calm down and let my staring contest drag on a few more seconds before I redirected my attention to the horse who had initiated the conversation in the first place. "So you want me to believe that Sam and I are children of some millennia-old god with a hard-on?" That expression was followed but more gasps. I grinned at Chiron, who looked thoroughly disgusted. "You never said anything about innuendo." I reminded him.

Chiron's lip started to curl, and all of the sudden I was more than a little afraid. I had never seen Chiron actually consider harming a demigod...ever. No matter what they had done or were doing. But it appeared the despicable act was paying off too well. I had pushed a little too far, and now I was going to feel the backlash. "Perhaps it would wiser for you to refrain from verbal expressions until after dinner, so that we can more properly discuss your heritage...in private." Chiron added ominously, making my insides boil. What exact kind of torture did he have in mind?

_Nothing worse than mine, I'm sure_. I flinched. The internal aside had not been my own. It had been the Torturer's.

As nonchalantly as I could, I glanced at my watch and checked the date. It was as I thought. I was still three weeks off, and psychotic external thoughts didn't start popping into my head until the day before. It didn't match the usual, precise, clockwork schedule to which I had become so accustomed.

I swallowed nervously and waited for more helpful comments. But there was silence in my head, save for the jumpy state of mind I had just been thrust into. But it seemed like I was just being paranoid and remembering my stay in Tartarus like a masochist.

_Or were you?_

**That was Chapter Nine for you. I hope you liked, because it pretty much set the feel for the rest of the story. By the way, I forgot to tell you. This story, "The Forgotten Fear," is a two-parter, and it's still the first in the series. I'm planning on four or five, give or take a few. **

**Later on, Heroes of Olympus will be incorporated, just FYI, but I'm making minor little modifiers here and there. The major will be explained in the chapter introducing the books, and I suggest that if you haven't read Heroes of Olympus, you might want to. First off, they are awesome. And secondly, I'm not going to rewrite the books to fit my story, and I'm only messing with the first two. The rest is already planned. But nothing had happened with those yet, so you don't need to know anything.**

**Please review. **


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

I'm Welcomed

Travis Stoll, son of Hermes, invited Sam and me to eat with him. His mischievous younger brother, Connor, sat on his right while we ate weakly on his left. Sam was easing her food down, but I could tell she was restraining herself. She knew better than to scarf down a buffet after she'd gotten used to a piece of bread a day.

But I didn't have that problem. My appetite was completely dead. I stared at my plate with an American cheeseburger on it and the only thing I could think of was how disgusting it was going to taste after getting used to fast food out of a garbage can.

Travis was stuffing his face with a hotdog, complete with all the fixings. Mustard trailed down his cheek when he noticed me watching him. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, but all that did was smear the condiment over his cheek. "Go ahead," he told me, nodding at my plate. "Knock yourself out. There are no food restrictions here, as long as it's not alcoholic. The kids, you know." Travis nodded at Sam, who was spooning oysters into her mouth. I laughed under my breath. She really did love seafood.

"Yeah," I chuckled, watching Sam enjoy herself. "I know." Then I realized Travis was staring at me. "What?"

"Is she your sister?" I rolled my eyes.

"No," I told him shortly. "But we've known each other for forever, so we're pretty close." Travis narrowed his eyes and studied us each in turn.

"You look a lot alike." He observed, shoving another piece of hotdog in his mouth. "You could be half-siblings." I looked back at Sam and bit my lip. Yeah, I thought, I can see why we'd be misconstrued as brother and sister. We do have a lot of similarities. Messy black hair, green eyes, only mine were slightly darker than hers. Not by much, though. And even our bone structure bore some of the same characteristics.

"We're not." I said flatly. "And besides, I'm not even completely convinced I buy this demigod garbage in the first place." Travis laughed and choked on his hotdog. I turned back to see Connor hitting him on the back hard, grinning up at me.

"What my brother means to say between desperate gasps for air," he glanced down at his older sibling evilly and hit him twice as hard as he had before. Travis spit out the piece of hotdog and spit at his brother, who dodged. An indignant Chris Rodriguez called out when the organic projectile landed on his plate. It was immediately whisked away and replaced with a fresh rack of ribs. He grinned triumphantly and started shoveling it in his mouth. Connor laughed. "Anyway, half-bloods don't usually believe it for a while. This goes against everything we've always been taught, so it doesn't sit right. But pretty soon you'll start to realize the truth to it all. Probably the minute you get claimed, actually. If not before."

Travis nodded. "I know it wasn't real for me until Connor and I got flying shoes hovering over our heads." It was Sam's turn to choke.

"What?" she asked, holding her throat and coughing. I patted her back gently and she waved me away.

"Relax," Travis chuckled. "There's this glowing light that appears over your head when you're claimed. It's awesome, though. We haven't had a claiming in months."

"We were hoping with Matthew, but he's still too young." Interjected a brunette from across the table, glancing over at a self-conscious boy wearing a blue checkered shirt. He was idly stirring his soup, looking crestfallen. He couldn't have been more than ten.

"Yeah," Travis said dejectedly. "Whoever his godly parent is really is sticking this one out to the letter." I raised an eyebrow. This time, what they were talking about didn't make any sense to me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Travis jumped and looked back over at me, looking surprised. Then his expression relaxed and it was back to his usual expansive grin.

"The gods are now required to claim their mortal children by the time they turn thirteen or sooner. They can't have twenty-somethings who've been here forever moping around cuz their godly won't step up to the plate." Something in my mind shifted at his explanation, like I'd forgotten something from before. Something that had to do with Percy Jackson.

"I've never heard about that from any of the myths." I said suddenly, forgetting myself. Then I remembered I was supposed to be sarcastic and added a late scoff at the end. Thankfully, it wasn't too obvious, so Travis didn't seem to notice the moment of hesitation.

Travis nodded. "You wouldn't have. It's a new rule. Got implemented five years ago." I knew I was close to what it had to do with me, so I pushed.

"Why?"

Travis' expression darkened. For a moment he was silent. Then; "Because Percy Jackson turned down immortality for it."

As soon as my old name left Travis' lips, the table's temperature dropped abruptly. Everyone was suddenly very interested in their plates or shoes or cups. It was like Nico had gotten very angry very fast and sucked all of the shadows from the Mess Hall into one place.

The brunette looked anxiously over at the Athena table; and more specifically, Annabeth Chase. The daughter of Athena looked perfectly happy, laughing at something her brother Malcolm had said while popping a grape in her mouth.

My gaze lingered on her back for longer than I'd like to admit. Her blonde curls were starting to come out of her ponytail, strands bouncing on her back as she exaggerated her amusement. Her Celestial bronze knife was lying on the table next to her plate. My heart constricted when I recognized the blade. It was the same one that had taken Luke Castellan's life. The same one he had given her when she had been seven.

I turned sharply back to my plate and moved to start tackling that hamburger when Chiron clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. I sighed. Looked like I'd missed my chance.

"I trust it was another quality dinner for you all?" he asked the campers, and there were mostly nods in response. I didn't do anything. I stared at him intently and caught him glancing in my direction. But his expression wasn't distaste or anticipation. It was shame. "Well, if you would all proceed to the amphitheater for the sing-a-long. Eric, if you accompany me to the Big House."

I tensed and nodded. Sam looked apprehensive. When I stood to follow Chiron, who was already heading out of the Mess Hall, she grabbed my sleeve. "Be careful," she warned before letting go and getting pulled by the Hermes procession to the campfire.

I met her eyes firmly before they were covered by the herd of limbs moving toward the camp gathering. She knew what it meant. _I'll run before I let anything happen_.

I jogged after Chiron.

The Big House looked no different from before, save from the leopard head on the wall, hanging above the head of my third least favorite god.

Hera takes the cake when it comes for my hatred toward the various Olympians, Ares in a close second, but Dionysus, also known as Mr. D, hang a little behind in third place. He was wearing his usual leopard print shirt and shorts with a diet coke can in his hand. I resisted the urge to growl at him when I spotted him.

Mr. D was happily leaning back in his chair when he lazily turned his head toward the open door. Chiron held it open stiffly as I walked inside, locking eyes with the wine god. I smiled when Mr. D spit out his mouth full of soda in alarm. His jaw moved up and down wordlessly and I mouthed _Test_. With difficulty, he forced himself under control, taking deep, measured and slightly panicky breaths. I noticed the jumpy way he was glanced over at me, like any minute I would spout horns or something. It was a satisfying reaction.

I crossed my arms as I took in the room. As usual, the Ping-Pong/conference table was in the middle of room, a recently emptied can sitting in front of one of the chairs, indicating recent meetings. On the far side of the room, underneath the unnerving leopard's head, was a poker table with a deck of cards sitting in the middle. Three already drained coke cans also sat on it.

The walls were covered with pictures; photographs from various summers at Camp Half-Blood. I walked around absently, studying each one in turn. I saw several of Annabeth, mostly because she'd been living at Camp since she was seven. There were also a surprising number of group shots also including the Hunters, Thalia Grace at the front arm in arm with Annabeth. There didn't appear to be any suppressed animosity in those between the two groups, once sworn rivals. There was a shot of Annabeth, not much older than sixteen, in a two piece bathing suit, splashing in the water. To my disbelief, Clarisse was accompanying her, laughing a little less. Her boyfriend, Chris Rodriguez, was chasing after her.

The other pictures were pretty much the same all around. Happy, outgoing, void of any and all indications that Percy Jackson had ever been a member at Camp Half-Blood. So the uncomfortable silence brought on by my name at the Hermes table wasn't as bad as I had thought. They'd all moved on.

That when I saw the far left wall.

My heart stopped dead when I first laid eyes on it. In front was a pedestal with a familiar watch sitting on it in a glass case. It had been a gift to me from Tyson, my Cyclops half-brother, and transformed into a shield. It had saved my life a lot back when I was taking on quests. And behind the pedestal was an array of pictures all around the Greek letters meaning "In Memorial of Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon." It was me throughout my life, no doubt picture donated by my grief-stricken mother. There were a lot of my time at Camp, arm in arm with Annabeth or laughing with Grover. There were more than a few of me during sword-fighting, wiping the field with the Ares kids.

And the worst part of it all was a book sitting open on the pedestal, full of notes written by campers.

_Hey Percy. Wherever you are, pranks just aren't the same without you. Come home._

_-Travis_

_Where'd you go, Prissy? Remember, I've got a promise to keep. I'm going to pulverize you when you get back._

_-Clarisse_

_Damn it, Seaweed Brain. We miss you._

_-Wise Girl_

_I can't find you, but I'm not dead, so you have to be alive. Where are you, Percy?_

_-Grover_

They hadn't moved on.

I ran a shaky hand over the pages and turned back through it. Every one of about twenty initially blank pages was covered with messages in various inks, some in English and some in Greek. All of them said basically the same thing: Come back.

I bit back tears with difficulty. Damn it! This wasn't supposed to happen! Hera promised that they'd move on after finding out I was actually dead. She swore they wouldn't suffer because of my cowardice. How could this happen? I wasn't really that important. What did Percy Jackson matter compared to the happiness of some hundred or something people? Nothing! NOTHING!

"Eric?" asked a questioning voice from behind me. I looked around and saw a curious Chiron studying me carefully. I hastily gathered my wits, hoping Chiron hadn't noticed the barely developed tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

"What's this?" I demanded curtly, nodding toward the book. Chiron trotted over and looked down, flipping through the pages and looking solemn.

"Notes to a man who will never read them." he said dejectedly, turning away sharply like looking at the pictures hurt him. Chiron looked beyond crestfallen. He was heartbroken. But why? I wasn't the first hero he'd trained, and I certainly wasn't the last. He'd watched thousands of demigods come and go, each of them his students, and for intents and purposes, his children. What difference did I have that kept him grieving five years later?

I looked back at the book and realized each note was dated. I squinted my eyes at the watch on the pedestal and saw that it had the same date as many of the notes on that page. So they were still writing? How stupid were they? And looking back through it, I saw that nearly meaningful message had been made by Annabeth. For crying out loud, I thought desperately, let me go!

Suddenly, I heard something screech against the floorboards and my knees were taken out from under me, causing me to fall into a chair...hard. Just because my skin couldn't be penetrated didn't mean I could bruise, and that hurt.

"Ow," I muttered, resisting the urge to rub my ass. I started to stand with a gruff, demanding voice said, "Sit." I obeyed.

I turned the chair so I could face Chiron, who was sitting in his wheelchair, his white horse half concealed by some kind of magic I still didn't understand. Without his majestic lower half, he looked like nothing more than a tired disabled old man, the graying hair and deep eyes that seemed to have been everywhere. Which, in Chiron's case, they had.

"Who are you?" he asked shortly, his voice measured and controlled. I found myself more than a little taken aback by his extreme lack of tact. It became apparent to me very quickly that not only had I dispelled any doubts there might have been about me being Percy Jackson, I had made an enemy out of the oldest being at Camp Half-Blood.

I was off to a great start.

I rapidly reverted to my attitude inclined behaviors. In other words, I leaned back in my chair, rested my ankle against my knee, and crossed my arms in exasperation. "You already know the answer to that question, don't you?"

"I'm not so sure." Chiron said carefully. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, looking over at Mr. D with the barest hint of desperation. Thank the gods (him included) that he caught the pleas for help.

"Chiron," he said drowsily. "Are we ever going to finish this game or not? Enrico can wait."

"Eric," I snapped shortly, and Mr. D shot me and apologetic look, reminding me he was merely playing to a script. Anymore, Mr. D tried to avoid saying my name wrong because it ended with a bleeding wine god. I didn't have much tolerance for it anymore.

"Whatever, as the youth says nowadays." I chuckled dryly.

"Who's this idiot?" I asked Chiron irritably. Chiron sighed miserably.

"That _god_," he corrected. "-is Dionysus, but here we just call him Mr. D." I raised an eyebrow at him and grinned.

"D," I echoed. "As in drunk?" I winked at him. Mr. D tensed visibly, looking like it was taking all of his willpower not to turn me into a dolphin. I had started calling him Mr. Drunk shortly after getting out of Tartarus because he had somehow managed to bypass his father's restrictions and get ahold of alcohol. When I caught him staggering around Olympus arm in arm with a beautiful woman, I knew what he'd done, and the nickname stuck.

"Careful," Chiron warned dangerously. "Mr. D is significantly more patient and forgiving than most of the Olympians, but he is still not one to trifle with." I laughed and turned my attention back to Chiron, my eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Oh, I'm so afraid of the least important Olympian and the frightening grape vines. So terrifying," The sarcasm could not be mistaken. Chiron actually cracked a smile at that last part, mostly because Mr. D controlled breathing and red-faced expression was priceless.

"Actually," Mr. D interrupted before Chiron could speak, snapping his fingers. Instantly, vines started curling around my ankles, and I watched him, eyes flashing. "Those grape vines aren't just frightening. They're lethal." The vines curled all the way to my throat, restricting the oxygen flow. I knew my face was starting to turn purple, and blue. I tried to breathe, wheezing desperately as I clawed at the vice. I looked at Mr. D, trying to tell him he was overdoing it, when I saw his eyes. My gods, his eyes.

They were completely black and sparkling with sadistic glee.

Finally, the vines evaporated, leaving Mr. D looking confronted and shocked. He stumbled backward like he'd been hit. His eyes were back to normal, and they reflected his understanding of what had just happened. With a slight nod, he let me it was a discussion for a later time.

Chiron looked shocked and speechless. Mr. D leaned back in his seat, failing to appear bored. "I trust you've learned your lesson?" he asked deceptively. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chiron tense.

I nodded.

"Eric," Chiron said calmly. "Apparently this conversation will have to wait. But I do want you to remember to watch your words carefully here." I stood to leave, sighing in relief. But as my hand rested against the doorknob, Chiron thought it wise to add, "You can trust us, you know. We're not your enemies." I laughed dryly and lifted up my head, but I didn't face him.

"There are only three categories of people, Horse Fur. You've got enemies, you've got allies, and then you've got people you don't know about yet. Right now you fit the last group. But sooner or later, you will be sorted accordingly." I turned the knob and cracked it, pausing just before stepping outside and letting a ghost of a smile flicker across my face. "And there's no such thing as trust."

I shut the door behind me.

**Review.**


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

I Contemplate a Knife

I tucked my hands in my pockets as I stood in front of the creek, debating whether or not to splash through the water or just take the bridge. It had been so long since I'd felt the exhilarating rush of the Long Island Sound, but I wasn't sure if it was safe to just go running through. It might be a hint as to who I really was.

I looked back to the Big House, which looked like a little darker shade of blue in the twilight of early evening. Its white trim was luminescent in the orange hue of the sunset. But the windows were dark. No one was watching me from there.

I looked back across the river. None of the cabins were close enough to see me even if I wasn't careful, and there was no one else about. I chewed my lower lip, still apprehensive, but then I remembered something my father once told me; "The Sea does not like to be restrained."

I studied my feet for a moment, and the tattered, worn shoes that clad them. I wiggled my toes in anticipation, a smile spreading across my face as I crouched down and pulled off the barely passable footwear. I no longer wore socks-they became useless far too quickly and only added to discomfort-so my feet were now filthy and bare. With barely suppressed excitement, I jumped into the creek.

There was an almighty splash and a laugh was torn from my lips unhindered. It was a far share louder than I would have liked, so I glanced back at the Big House. But the shutters were closed, and no one seemed concerned.

I felt the undeniable rush that only came from true freedom. The water, sadly, was too shallow for complete submersion, and I briefly considered running to the beach and throwing myself in there. But I immediately discounted the idea. I had two months to enjoy the Long Island, and running like a crazy person to the shoreline and throwing myself in the ocean was a surefire way to let the whole world who I really was.

So I waded to the other side of the creek, feeling the crash sensation you get after drinking too much caffeine. I vaguely remembered what it was like to drink soda, but the memory was so dull now that it hardly constituted a recollection. I missed the blue coke I used to have at Camp Half-Blood. Again, I remembered that I was standing in Camp Half-Blood and therefore had the opportunity to try it again at last, but I decided against it. There weren't very many people alive that liked blue soda, and jugging down an entire gallon of the stuff might be another dreaded giveaway.

I looked back longingly to the creek when the realization that splashing in the creek for a few minutes was going to be my last and only luxury of staying in Camp. The rest of it was going to be one gigantic onset of plans, all stacked on top of other, controlling separate pieces; preparations in case of exposure, back-ups if something went wrong. Camp Half-Blood was going to test me to my breaking point. I just hoped that it was more of a hairline fracture rather than shattering into a million irreparable pieces.

Hastily, I shoved my shoes back on and hopped, then ran for the cabins.

After about a minute, I mentally slapped myself. If I went straight to the Hermes cabin, it was about as obvious as it got I already knew my way around camp. And it had been forever since I'd actually navigated Camp Half-Blood. With the additional cabins, I wasn't sure I knew where to go anymore.

So I meandered over to the cabins, just because they were obviously the living quarters. I jogged in between one with ancient symbols chiseled into the stone and another with depictions of battles and weapons stacked in front. The Nike and Hecate cabins, I assumed.

Some of the other cabins were less obvious. I was on the girls' side of the setup, and I noticed that all of the cabins looked pretty new. By girls' side, I meant the part of the cabin area with all the goddess' cabins. In the distance, I recognized the faint glow of the Artemis cabin, its silvery sheen visible from quite a ways. And Hera's cabin, the first one of the goddess', was elegant marble. I named several others as I passed, all designed differently according to the goddess they represented. I figured I would eventually figure out the names to all of them, but I figured it would take time.

Time I didn't have. I was only staying for two months, and after those two months, Eric the smartass was history.

I felt a chill run over me, which was odd. It was summer after all. And August on top of it. But I figured that the sea breeze coupled with the night air might contribute to the goose bumps developing on my arms. Annoyed, I rubbed the skin energetically, feeling tempted to just run to the Hermes cabin, but I restrained myself. I wasn't supposed to know where it was, or that I was even supposed to go there.

I passed Hera's cabin and glanced, briefly at Zeus'. But my eyes were immediately drawn to the cabin directly next to the marble temple vacant because Thalia Grace ran around the countryside with the Hunters. Next to Cabin one was Cabin three, which was a weird way of numbering the cabins, but they actually numbered them back and forth between the gods and the goddesses. So Cabin seven and Cabin six are on opposite sides of camp. I racked my brain when I tried to remember which god and which goddess those were, but my mind came up blank. Then it hit me; Apollo and Athena. My throat constricted when I remembered Annabeth. I really had to stop doing that.

As I stood in front of the cabin I once called home, I found myself reaching for the doorknob. I was almost entranced by it, the smell of the sea wafting from it, the breeze I felt come off the symbolic cabin of Poseidon. I twisted the doorknob when I heard a soft female cackle. I whirled around and realized it had come from Cabin two. "Damn you, Hera!" I shouted, stepping away from my old home with blood in my eyes. I shook my fist at the cabin, but after the taunting laughter, it was silent. Zeus' cabin, however, did thunder angrily, and I backed away, feeling cheated and conflicted.

I flashed one last look at Cabin three before I ran for all I was worth away from it.

My cheeks stung from the salty acidity of my tears. My face was dry and cracking with the dried moisture. I wiped away the drops shamefully, angry and hurt. I hated my life so much.

Despite previous reserves against it, I found myself seeking the trustworthy, Hera-free solace of the sea. I could feel the comforting breeze coming in off the shore, but I wasn't close enough to the water to get wet, even if I could. One of the perks of being the son of the sea god was that I didn't get wet unless I wanted to.

I leaned against a tree, watching the water lap against the shore jealously. I wanted nothing more than to hop into a canoe at that moment and will the sea to take me far, far away from Camp Half-Blood and everything it represented. I was sick and tired of living under Hera's shadow, and I had spent the past five, almost six years doing my best to escape from under her oppressive thumb. On the streets, I felt like I was on the outskirts, stretching a little bit farther away every moment I resisted her. But here, in the heavy, dense atmosphere of Camp Half-Blood, trapped under the merciless, selfish command of the gods, there was nothing I could do but be suffocated.

"You've already taken my life." I muttered devastatingly. "Why do you have to throw it in my face?" I shook my head and slid down the trunk, bark coming off as I went. Dryads would kill me later, I thought, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

I reached behind my back and unsheathed the knife with trembling hands. Holding its Celestial bronze blade up to my eyes, I studied the malevolent golden glint of the moonlight against it. I unfurled my fingers slightly from the hilt and turned it over in my hand, studying the names engraved on the hilt in Ancient Greek.

"_Who are you?" I asked the black-haired girl warily. She jumped half-way to Mars and whirled around to face me. She looked like a wreck. Her face was streaked with dirt and cut from the scrapes with monsters, like the one she had just had. Her dark eyes twinkled in the sunrise, making her look radiant and naturally beautiful, despite the dirt smeared across her face._

_She swallowed like she hadn't drunk water in ages. "Emily," she told me. "Emily Richardson, daughter of Demeter. Do you know you're a demigod?"_

_I laughed, and she looked affronted. "I've got news; I've known I was a half-blood for years. What do think I'm running away from?" She furrowed her brow curiously._

"_You mean you're avoiding them too?" I nodded. I hadn't expected to run across someone with similar motives to mine._

"_Yeah, I've been doing it for years." Emily smiled. "You need some food? I've got plenty nearby." She grimaced, and then hesitated._

"_I could use a partner too. What's your name?"_

_I paused, and shrugged. I wasn't the man I used to be, so telling her the other name I'd worked up for myself couldn't hurt. "I'm Eric. And I wouldn't mind sticking with someone for a while."_

My fingers trailed over the engraved names on the hilt, side-by-side. The only two people I would ever use this knife against, I thought. One name struck a painful chord in my memory.

_Anne_. The traitor. The bitch who had taken my love and used it to kill what little bit of hope I still nurtured inside my heart. The selfish whore that had ripped my everything out from under me after I already lost what little grasp on reality I had left. The "romantic assassin" who pretended to be something she wasn't because of an assignment.

_Perseus_. That one I lingered over. That name made me want to bawl my eyes out and at the same time kick and scream and rant and rain hell on the heads of everyone nearby. That Ancient name meaning "The Avenger" had made me half-mad and had given light to my days. That name made my insides boil and my heart leap whenever Sam called me it. And it was the name I no longer had. It was the name of the hero I no longer was. It was the name of men that no longer lived.

I carved it away with my pocket knife, digging in to the hilt angrily, the symbolism behind the cutting being my recovery from the hell I'd been put through. But I wasn't going to give up on my dream just yet. Next to the scratched out name, I etched _Eric_ into the wood.

"There," I said finally, pocketing the switchblade and studying the newly ornamented knife. Now was where I fought with myself for the better of an hour, an internal war raging over should I or shouldn't I. This was where I thought of Sam, and then I thought of how after I left Camp Half-Blood I would never see her again. And then I thought of how ashamed my father would be of me if I did it, and then I realized he'd voted to have me exiled from Camp Half-Blood. Then I remembered all the good times of my life and countered it with the shithole of an existence I was living now. And after that...you get the picture.

But the end result of my warring self was always the same. I put away the knife. I stood up and walked away from the spot where I had nearly dealt the fatal blow. I pushed all of the depressing, incapacitating emotions under the surface again, tricking myself that I was moving on when I really wasn't. And then, not long after, when no one was looking, I would study the knife away and the cycle would start over.

I was in a vicious cycle with no conclusion. And I was sick and tired of it. I had cuffs on my wrists, and they bound me to a life I had to let go of. And someday, somehow, I would find the key. But I just didn't know where that damned key was hidden.

I drove the knife into the ground with a yell, whipping around and pulling Riptide from my pocket. I threw it into the sea with all my might. "Why won't you just let me die?" I screamed. "And stay away this time."

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my back to the water, suddenly feeling exhausted. I looked skyward and thought a silent prayer to the Fates. _One day, I'm going to die. I have to wonder what's taking you so long._

Then I felt the familiar weight of my pen-sword return to my pocket and sadness weighed heavily on my chest. I didn't pull it back out and try to get rid of it again-it would just keep coming back. It always came back.

I crouched down and yanked the knife from the ground. Part of me was tempted to throw _that_ into the surf, because that knife would never come back. It wasn't magical. It was just another Celestial bronze knife. But I couldn't do it. Because now that knife was woven into the chains of my endless prison, as much a part of me as my legs or arms. It was something that I would cry helplessly for if it was ever taken away.

I thought about the man I used to be. Percy Jackson would never have debated suicide. It never would have crossed his mind, and even if it had, he wouldn't have taken the time to cut his brief goodbye note to life in the smooth wood of a knife. He was stronger than that.

But I was stronger than him. Wasn't I?

I shook my head. I couldn't afford to think that way. I jogged back to the cabins and stood in front of the Hermes cabin, then started the act I'd thought over on my way there.

I walked around and knocked on Apollo's door, the bright gold Cabin seven. A tired Will Solace came to the door and glowered at me. When he realized who I was, he sighed and pointed at the brown, plain Hermes cabin, a caduceus hanging above the door. "Go in there. That's where you'll be sleeping until you're claimed."

_Which will be never_. I didn't say, because that would be a dead giveaway. I couldn't really say much of anything now, could I?

So I walked over to the Hermes and opened the door, not even bothering to be quiet. Travis shot bolt upright and stared at me, bleary-eyed. "Wha-Eric? I take Chiron didn't tell you where to go." I nodded angrily and looked around for a place to sleep.

"Where do I bunk?" I demanded, seeing the just-waking figures of the cabin as a series of lights came on. Someone called out indignantly from the back.

"Shut it off!" The voice sounded strongly British, which was weird.

"Just go back to sleep, Cissy!" Travis called back to her, earning a "Bloody Americans" in response. But the camper turned over and went back to sleep. I thought "Cissy" was some form of mean nickname, but the Hermes child didn't seem angry. She just started snoring again. Maybe her mom hadn't thought much of her newborn daughter.

Travis shook his head and looked up at me. "Sorry, Chiron must have been really out of it for him to forget where to send you. How'd you find us?"

"The archer kid, Will." Travis nodded. Just then, Sam wrapped her arms around me and cried into my shirt.

"Are you alright?" she demanded. "Did he hurt you?" I shook my head.

"No, Sam. I'm fine. Believe me." I ruffled her hair affectionately, and she ducked. We shared a bitter laugh, but it died. I couldn't tell her what was going on in front of so many eavesdroppers, but I gave her a look that promised a detailed explanation the moment I got the chance.

"Relax, kid," Travis assured her.

"Sam." She corrected irritably.

"Sorry, _Sam_. Chiron can get angry, but he doesn't hurt half-bloods. Ever. You're big brother is perfectly safe."

"She's not my little sister." I told him. "But she's good as family. And it's not the horse I've got a problem with. It's the drunk." Travis raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. D? He can't get drunk. His dad gave him restrictions. He can't touch alcohol for another, like, forty years." Travis shook his head. "You can crash on the bunk above Sam's, if you want. Nobody's sleeping there." With that, his head hit the pillow and he started snoring. Slowly, everyone else did the same, except Sam and me.

We just stared at each other for several long moments, neither speaking nor really expressing what they were feeling. Then I knelt down and hugged her. She wrapped her stumpy arms around my neck and shook from tears.

"Oh, Percy," she hissed in my ear. "What are you going to do?" I patted her back reassuringly, imagining a different, safer place for us. For everyone. A place where the Queen of the Gods couldn't hurt anyone ever again. But right now, we were in the real world, and in the real world, Hera was the biggest enemy anyone had right at that moment. She was the bulls-eye of the target, the one spot I could never hit with an arrow. But the day I learned how was going to be the day I ended her tyrannical reign once and for all.

"I don't know yet, Sam. But whatever it is, it's going to make Hera pay."

**I feel the "Dun, dun, dun" is necessarily inserted here. I tried to make this a truly heartfelt chapter, providing a look into the conflicted state of Perseus "Eric" Jackson. I hope I made some of you at least get a twanging of the heartstrings. If I made anybody cry, I'm sorry, but that was kind of the aim.**

**Please review. I really love it when people review. Oh, and I forgot. Thanks to "percyjacksonfan16" for all the great reviews. You get to ask one question. Same applies to you as did to Kaitie85783, you can ask a series to ensure one gets answered, from most important to least, but only one will be answered. And I won't spoil anything for you. You need to enjoy and be shocked by the passing of the book. **


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

I Love to Fight

I woke up sharply in the morning due to the loud, incessant banging I quickly realized was being caused by Connor Stoll, the ultimate ADHD. "Attention, everyone!" he called. "Attention, Cabin eleven. Can I have your attention?"

"I'm fairly sure you also have the attention of China, you idiot. Now what the hell is your problem?" I demanded, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. You know that feeling you get after you haven't slept in longer than forever and you finally get some shuteye only to have it rudely taken away from you before you were content? Well, that was the way I was feeling just then.

"Capture the Flag is tomorrow!" he declared grandly. Sam was standing underneath my bunk, already dressed and alert. This was a first, I thought. Usually _I _had to drag _her_ out of bed.

"Wait," I muttered, half sticking to the act and half honestly lost. "How are old you? This is not Jr. High." Sam looked up at me, and I saw that her eyes were bloodshot. Had she been crying? Why the hell had she been crying? Who was the son of a bitch that made her cry? Didn't he know who he was pissing off? If I...

"This isn't any normal Capture the Flag game. It's the annual summer championship!" I gaped at him. I didn't remember anything about a summer championship.

"What summer championship?" Chris Rodriguez demanded, saving me the awkward embarrassment of doing it myself.

"What summer championship?" Connor echoed disbelievingly. "The summer championship Chiron has been talking about for weeks! The victor of this match gets the trophy. And I'm not just talking laurels. I mean an all-expenses paid trip out of Camp Half-Blood for three days! The winning cabin is going cross-country!"

Travis was on his feet in a second, still dressed in his pajamas. "You mean he wasn't joking about that? He actually meant it?" Connor beamed at his younger brother and clapped her on the back.

"Of course he was joking about that, little bro. But it got your attention, didn't it?" Connor laughed as Travis took a swing at his head, cursing him out. The following mimed fight incited several bouts of hysterical laughter from the onlookers.

Even seemed unusually amused by the friendly wrestling match rolling around on the ground, but I couldn't be any more disinterested. With a grace I had gotten only after years on the streets and the necessity to stay unnoticed, I jumped down from my top bunk landing like a cat on the ground, one knee and hand bracing me. I easily stood and checked my pocket and hip for my weapons. I only carried Riptide and Anne's knife anymore; no shields, no armor. They only slowed me down.

I decided that if I was going to be trapped in Camp Half-Blood for two months, I might as well keep in shape. So I bent down to Sam's and hissed, "Exercising," before shoving my way through the gathering crowd of Hermes children, all chanting, "Fight, fight, fight, fight..."

I rolled my eyes at their immaturity and then saw Sam, chanting right along with the rest of them. I was about to reconsider my thoughts when it dawned on me that Sam really _was_ a kid, and therefore entitled to a little juvenility. So I migrated to the door, which I had been about to open when an indignant Annabeth appeared in the doorway.

I stumbled back in surprise, and it must have shown on my face, because when Annabeth saw me, she smiled. "Looks like your human after all," she teased, and then returned to her condescending glaring at every member of the cheering mob. And at Travis and Connor especially. "Wonderful," she growled. "We get new half-bloods for the first time in months, and what do you two do? Have a blowout fight in the middle of your cabin!" She slammed her forehead into the palm of her hand and shook her head. I could feel her watching me out of the corner of her eye and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like they did when I knew I was being stalked by a dangerous monster. I knew for an absolute fact that one slip up, one misstep; one subtle clue that would be lost on the rest of the world could completely and totally blow whatever remnants of a cover I had if Annabeth was nearby to witness it. Because she was constantly thinking, constantly puzzling, constantly figuring things out that no one else could ever hope to decode. Annabeth was Athena's pride and joy, and that fact alone made her the most dangerous enemy at Camp Half-Blood. And sadly, that meant I had to make her my enemy.

"Well, well, well," I laughed darkly, attracting Annabeth's wary attention. Even in the morning, she was alert and cautious. "Look what the cat dragged in." Annabeth glanced down at her disheveled clothing and back up at me, looking insulted. "Have you ever even heard of a hairbrush?"

I resisted the urge to wince when Annabeth took a sweeping step toward me. "I just woke up." she told me. "And frankly, whatever opinion you might have about how women should and should not look means nothing to me. But I don't take kindly to slurs or insults, and that it something you should know. Because you've already made an enemy out of a son of Hades. The only living son of Hades, might I add." There were gasps around the room. "But there is one thing you do not want to do. Because if you do, you are signing your death warrant. If you make me your enemy, you should rest assured that my plans do not fail. And there are already a few people who've learned that the hard way. So my recommendation to you, Eric, is to watch what you say here. Because we're friendly as long as you're friendly, but the moment you turn nasty and sarcastic is the moment you make an army of enemies you can't beat."

Maybe Annabeth expected me to back down or apologize at that point. Maybe she expected to crack and smile and tell her I was joking, but I didn't. And that's what threw her off. Because everybody else in the world would run screaming the opposite direction after a subtle threat like that, but where I was concerned, I didn't intimidate. And besides, Percy Jackson would have apologized guiltily. Eric only stood and gave as good as he got.

"I detect a hint of condescension in your voice." I told her. "What's your name again?"

"Annabeth," she said darkly. "Annabeth Chase." She offered a curt handshake, and I glowered at her hand, a ghost of a smile spreading across my face. I smacked the gesture aside, turning my eyes up to meet her swirling gray funnels head-on. I grabbed onto her wrist, not her hand, and pulled her closer. Annabeth called out when she stumbled forward, and I breathed into her ear a very important message that would make or break everything to come.

"Chase," I hissed. "I'm going to act however I damn well please. And if you have a problem with that, you better be ready to resolve your issues." With that, I released her wrist, which she started rubbing in shock.

Without another word, I squeezed past her, through the door, and jogged over to the arena.

I almost drew Riptide, but stopped myself just before I pulled out the pen. To cover the action, because I was surrounded by demigods all shuffling to the Mess Hall for breakfast, I tucked both hands in my pockets and walked briskly over to the armory.

The armory was pretty much stocked to capacity with every kind of monster-killing weapon known to man. There was everything from ancient knives forged from Celestial bronze to modern rifles refitted from the Hephaestus cabin to fire modified bullets. I scanned the walls, adorned with everything a modern-day Spartan warrior could dream of. I almost chose a fairly reasonable sword when I realized something. On the streets, it was too risky to explore new areas of weaponry, although I did dabble occasionally. Here, there was no danger.

I selected a spear from the rack and ran back out to the arena.

To my satisfaction, I found several Ares kids doing their daily warm-ups. In other words, they were hacking away at each other viciously. Just my cup of tea, I mused.

I watched as a dirty blonde-haired whipped around, back and forth with her sword, defeating every single one of her siblings without breaking a sweat. All I saw was a bit her hair, but her face was obscured by the helmet and her general body by basic armor. But she was a beast in the middle of the field, cutting and hacking and slashing like a madwoman. I was impressed.

Then she kicked down the last of her fifteen attackers and whipped off her helmet. I groaned.

It was Clarisse.

When she saw me, her eyebrows rose up to her hairline. She sheathed her sword and called out to me, "What do you want?" I smiled and kicked up the spear, letting the pendulum effect carry it up to my left hand so I held it ready to fight. Clarisse nodded. "Flashy," she observed. "Unnecessary and show-offish, but flashy. So you're a spear type of guy, huh? I would've guessed sword personally, but..."

"Apparently you like to talk to your opponents before you lose to them." I interrupted impatiently. Clarisse's brows furrowed, making a kind of half-circle on her head. I braced myself firmly against the ground, and Clarisse drew her sword again.

"Lose?" she laughed. "I never lose. You should know, I don't fight fair."

"Funny," I told her, tilting my head to the side. "Neither do I," And I charged.

Spear against sword is an interesting matchup. It's tricky for both sides to fight, because each weapon is so different from the other it's like fighting an alien. But the benefit of carrying the spear in that equation is the added distance and versatility of the weapon. The spear, really, is no more than a glorified stick with a sharp tip at the end. But staffs were the predecessors for almost all weapons, and therefore had a certain degree of flexibility you didn't get from other mediums. For one thing, the spear was a long weapon capable of holding opponents back at a safe distance while you wailed on them. Secondly, there was significantly more area to use as deflection than was provided by a sword and most definitely a knife.

However, the sword was lighter and gave the wielder the ability to dance around their opponent's slower weapon with ease. So while the spear swung around to hit the side, the swordsman, or in this case, woman, could pull back or dodge or simply duck or roll underneath the assault. Making hitting the target a significantly harder task for the spearman.

The true spirit of both weapons made them perfect for different types of combat. The spear was not meant to be a weapon used in the heat of battle. During ancient wars, the infantryman in the frontline would brace themselves using their spears and the charging forces would impale themselves on the protruding metal tips. Which was also how the phalanx formation was used in battle. Each line of infantrymen would put their spears where they could useful which standing in a triangular formation, therefore tripling to quadrupling the number of spear tips in use.

But the sword was meant for combat. It was specifically designed to be used face to face when the attacking force was right on top of you and had broken through your formations. The sword was for chaos and anarchy, the loss of order and control that came with a truly terrifying and bloody battle. The sword was the weapon of choice for one on one combat and full-fledged war. But it's one drawback way its distance. It was a medium-range weapon, which gave the swordsman a better distance than they would have using, say, a knife, but it was still risky. If one was crammed in tight in combat, it was too easy for one fighter or the other to pull a knife and plunge it into the stomach of the other.

At Camp Half-Blood, such trickery was frowned upon. Unless you were actually fighting a battle, desperate measures were avoided and never considered. But one the streets, when every second counts, out of the safety of the borders that guarded against monsters, nothing could be thought out of the option or too loathsome to consider. Meaning that for five years I had been ingraining the knowledge that when you fight, you fight to kill.

That gave me a big disadvantage in this fight. Clarisse had been virtually raised at Camp, and however dirty she fought, she wouldn't kill me. She couldn't kill me even if she wanted to. She had been taught otherwise. But the lessons I had gathered from Camp had been overshadowed by those gained on the streets, so whenever I saw a vulnerable point or kink in Clarisse's defense, I had hold myself back from going for it, however difficult that was to do.

When I charged at Clarisse, I added a battle yell just to top it off. But Clarisse wasn't there by the time my spear penetrated the air where she had been standing. Clarisse immediately took advantage of my temporarily off-balance stance and tried to kick me, but I had been expecting it and lunged forward, folding into a tight roll and coming back up, picking up the spear I'd been forced to drop when I rolled.

Clarisse attempted to step on it to keep me from picking it back up, but I was too fast, yanking it from her reach before she could take it. Clarisse's face contorted in concentration. Apparently she had just realized she wasn't dealing with a complete rookie.

This time, she charged, but due to my added advantage of distance, I managed to smack aside her sword before it ever came close to me. Clarisse let out a loud growl and threw herself at me, apparently pissed that I was lasting as long as I was.

Our fight went back and forth, neither party getting much of an advantage against the other before either Clarisse or I took an opening and leveled the playing field. I noticed beads of sweat building on the daughter of Ares' forehead, forcing her to blink it out of her eyes. Recognizing the temporary blindness that caused, I started going significantly more offensive, pushing her back farther and farther until she was flat against the wall of the arena. Clarisse moved aside before I could finish the fight thought, coming behind me and kicking me in the back.

There's something Sam never understood. She thought because my skin was impenetrable, I couldn't be hurt anywhere but that small area of my back. But that was wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. Bruises aren't caused by penetration. My insides are just as vulnerable as they've always been; rupturing blood vessels was still very possible for me to do if I got enough blunt force exerted on me. Which was why after a particularly nasty fight with a monster or monsters I came back out black and blue.

But Clarisse's kick didn't hurt because it bruised me. It hurt because it landed opposite my naval.

That was where was lifeline was forever attached. If that point on my body was ever cut or penetrated in any way, I would die. And there would be nothing anyone could do. Once the Achilles Heel is ruptured, once the lifeline is cut, no amount of ambrosia or nectar could save me.

So when Clarisse's foot pressed me against the wall using that part of my anatomy, my eyes watered and my vision erupted in so many colors it wasn't even funny. There was nothing I could do to not scream my head off. I hit the wall, my nose slamming into it with enough force to break anyone else's. But mine was a little tougher than that. Again, I can break bones, but I had a certain degree of resistance because of my harder than average skin.

My palms were flat against the wall and my back arched, the pain becoming unbearable. I felt Clarisse let up, mostly out of shock, as I sagged against the wall and collapsed in a heap, panting for every wisp of air I could get. I was completely and totally fatigued, so when I stood and picked back up my spear, hands and arms and legs shaking violently, it was only because I refused to lose so quickly or easily.

Clarisse's guilt was her downfall. I didn't give her any room to feel sorry for me, and because of it I had her sword skittering across the ground and the tip of my spear at her throat.

Clarisse gulped.

Slowly, gradually, her hands went up in surrender. I waited for several moments before lowering the spear and grinning cockily at her. Her face was covered in sweat and showed nothing but shock and awe. Humbly, she offered her hand, but I didn't shake it.

"I never told you who I was last night." She said. "My name is Clarisse."

"Eric,"

"I know." She said. "But...I'm a daughter of Ares, just so you know. Beating me isn't easy. It's something to strut about." I scoffed.

"Got a big head, don't you?" I demanded. "Thinking beating you makes me some sort of extraordinary fighter. I'm good, I admit. But I don't like people using their immense egos to compare me to. So thanks, but no thanks."

Clarisse's expression was exactly what I had been aiming for. I shoved past her, shoulders smacking, and picked up her fallen sword, using it to hack ruthlessly on a dummy. She stuck around for her sword, arms crossed and face firm. She hovered for so long I eventually caved, tossing her the weapon easily and jogging away from the arena.

It was only then I realized people had seen the fight unravel. And now they were all afraid of me.

Good.

**I simply love writing this Percy. He's awesome, even if he is a little mentally fouled up. It's probably something to do with mental issues that my favorite characters to write about are the sick, twisted, sarcastic ones, but they're just plain fun. **

"**percyjacksonfan16" is reminded that they have a chance to ask me any question they want. Reminder: order them from most important to least, and I will answer the first one I feel won't spoil the story for you. I don't know if you're reading it, but it can apply to No More Death too. **

**I also want your opinions on something. I've got an idea for a dark, mature-themed story with practically no restraint on language or anything else. And it's a song-fic one-shot. Do you think I should do it or concentrate on NMD and TFF?**

**Reminder to readers of NMD and NMD readers alone. Should I kill Anne? I read ten votes and I only have one! Come one, people, answer me! **


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Chiron Gets Antsy...and it Freaks Everybody Out

After my rather thrilling fight with Clarisse, the rest of my day moved along without much problem. Of course, I completely ignored the existence of every other living person except for Sam, who seemed to be enjoying herself.

She moved from activity to activity with the Hermes cabin, first archery, (which she's even worse at than me) then the stables, then arts and crafts, free period, and finally the arena. Thanks to my training and her raw talent, Sam excelled. I couldn't take much credit for it though. She was just really good.

I leaned against the wall while Sam practiced with a knife, sword, and shield, occasionally offering encouraging cheers or helpful adjustments. Sam didn't need much of the latter. Every time she noticed something off about the weapon, she'd scrutinize it intently and shift the way it sat in her hand until it felt right, and then begin practicing footwork and attacks. In less than an hour, Sam went from a novice to an excelling student.

When she stumbled over to me, she was exhausted and sweaty from running around camp all day. Her fingers were blistered by her stubbornness to not let the bow beat her, and she was bruised fairly badly from a minor skirmish with Travis, who tried to get her accustomed to sparring. I felt a little guilty about her inability to give as good as she got; whenever there had been a monster attack, I'd taken on the demon and kept Sam behind me. Now it was proving to be less of a gesture of affection and compassion as it was a major hindrance. But like she always was, Sam was a fast learner. I didn't give it long before she was ready to take on the Camp.

I knelt down and used a washcloth to wipe the sweat off her face and splashed some water on top of her head. I checked her pulse, which was a little sped up but otherwise stable, and lightly smacked her cheek to keep her from passing out. "How-" she yawned. "How did I do?" I clapped on the back.

"Fantastic," I praised. "But next time, you might want to go easier on yourself. You're not fighting monsters here, Sam. You have to remember that." With a weak voice, she promised she would and I let her lean against me as she headed for her second dinner at Camp Half-Blood.

I was too starved to refuse the meal, so I sat down and scarfed every scrap off the plate. I'd gotten so used to scavenged food from dumpsters behind McDonalds and Jack in the Crack that actual, fresh meat looked more than a little daunting. It was a juicy steak, which I hadn't had in so long it wasn't even funny. At this point in my life, I was hard-pressed to remember what my favorite food had been, and nowadays the constant fevered running made pickiness undesirable. So my carnivorous cravings were satisfied with the juicy, still slightly pink slab of meat.

I saw greedily at the seasoned piece of steak and stuffed a large piece into my mouth, feeling the sensation of contentment rushing all the way down to my stomach. My eyes widened at the foreign taste, forgotten to my taste buds and replaced by years of trash and rotting fruits. It was so...exciting. No, fulfilling. No, it was...

"Good?" Travis asked in between bits of his hamburger. I resisted the urge to nod and savagely sink my teeth into meat, forgetting the fork. But I kept myself from sinking that low. I wasn't supposed to show weakness, and I had to remember that. Overwhelming hunger was a sign of weakness and undernourishment.

Sam, however, wasn't concerned about stupid things like appearing strong. She was eating everything in sight, all of her sides, her main dish, and the rapid fire replenishments given to her by the harpies.

I sawed off more meat and stuffed the pieces into my mouth in close succession. The others at the table stared at me in disgust, but Travis just told them I hadn't gotten a chance to eat last night, and he hadn't been me at breakfast.

"There's a reason you didn't see him at breakfast." One of Travis' half-brothers declared in a whisper. I peered at him over my fork and shoved another piece of meat into my mouth, chewing slowly. "You didn't see him in the arena. I've never seen anybody fight that good. Not even Percy came close." Travis tensed.

"Watch it," he warned. "Percy never got the time to get better, and he was really young when he died. He could have given Ares a run for his money if he'd been given just a little longer to hone his skills."

"Well, Eric did give Ares a run for his money." The Hermes boy told Travis. "I've never seen anyone that good fight Clarisse. Ever. She always wins."

Travis turned to me, intrigued. "You're a rookie and you fought Clarisse on your first day? How bad did you do?" I didn't answer. I buried myself in the meat, the slab of T-bone steak answering every need a man had.

"He won."

Travis whirled around on his sibling and gaped at him. "He what?"

"He won. There was a moment there where it looked like Clarisse was gonna take the gold again, but man did he come back hard. Knocked her sword out of her hand and walked away the victor. I've never seen anything like it." I tried not to pay attention to their conversation, but it was getting increasingly more difficult to do. I pursed my lips and reached for my goblet, tossing back a gulp and finding it empty.

"Well, that's why." Travis scoffed. "Everybody knows Clarisse isn't half her skill without Lamer."

"You're right." Travis' brother agreed. "But Eric had the spear."

Silence.

The entire Hermes tables went deadly quiet, no one making a sound. All that could be heard was Sam's oblivious scarfing and the raspy breathing of a few demigods staring in complete shock at me. I did my best to pretend I didn't notice them and muttered "Water" under my breath so I could have something to drink. That was the first time in my entire life I'd actually wanted alcohol, and of course Camp Half-Blood didn't have that option.

I returned to my plate only to find it empty. I'd finished off my steak. I tried to drink from my goblet, but Connor had snatched it away, forcing me to look up at him to get it back. I growled. "What's with you, Stoll?" I demanded, lunging for my water. Connor peered into the cup and scowled.

"Really?" he asked. "You could have _any_thing nonalcoholic and you choose water? Aren't you a health-nut." He handed me back the cup and I shot it down in one greedy gulp.

"So, Eric," Travis shifted in his seat to face me. "Did you actually, you know, beat Clarisse at her own game?"

I looked up darkly at him and another steak appeared in front of me. Without looking down, I started cutting through it and smiling evilly at Travis. "Depends on who Clarisse is. If she's the cocky egotistical blonde who got her ass handed to her this morning, than yes."

Travis gaped at me, working his jaw up and down like he wanted to say something but couldn't. Just then, Chiron cleared his throat and everyone looked up to the podium where he was standing. There was an obvious grimace on his face.

"I trust dinner went well?" Chiron called. The campers nodded, which I remembered was the standard response. "There will be a Capture the Flag game tomorrow. Remember, the current teams are Athena on red," There were a lot of aggravated from the other campers because Annabeth was the best strategist. Ever. "And Hermes on blue."

My table erupted in cheers and victorious high-fives. Travis and Connor did this weird handshake that I couldn't follow and the other demigods were jumping up and down and laughing at the Athena table shamelessly. Sam and I continued eating greedily, waiting for the childish victory dances of the Hermes cabin to subsided.

Finally, they all sat back down, still laughing hysterically at the Athena cabin.

"Thank you, Cabin Eleven, for that childish show." I broke up, Sam joining in. Travis glowered at us. "As I was saying, what are the alliances looking like now."

Annabeth stood up. Of course she did, she was captain. "Athena has allied with Hades," I glanced over at Nico, as did everyone else, and he shrugged.

"She wouldn't go away until I agreed." He told them, and everyone groaned. Leave it to a determined Annabeth to be pushy.

Annabeth continued as if Nico hadn't said anything. "Nike and Ares are also sided with us. Tyche and Hecate as well. Will hasn't replied to my request to join the team."

"I've talked to my cabin!" Will called out. "You've got the bow!"

"_What?_" Travis screamed shrilly. "I thought you were with us!"

Will grimaced. "Sorry, man, but a guy's got to pick the winning side." Travis looked indignant.

"Winning side?" he echoed. "Well, I outta-" Connor was on his feet and holding his older brother back before Travis could swing his leg over the bench and go after Will. Everyone was laughing their asses off.

"_Anyway_," Annabeth spat impatiently. "What's that: Hades, Tyche, Hecate, Apollo...oh, and Hephaestus turned down my offer in favor of Hermes. I hope you know what you're doing, Jake." Jake Mason waved off the comment and more laughter erupted. "I've already said Ares and Nike...I think that's all, Chiron."

The centaur nodded. "Travis?" Travis was still busy fighting with Connor to answer. "Travis!" Connor forced him back into his seat breathlessly.

"We've got Hephaestus. And Aphrodite and Demeter asked to side with us. Pollex agreed." The son of Dionysus had a few siblings sitting around him, which made me raise an eyebrow at Mr. D, who shook his head. "That's all we've got." Travis sounded miserable as he sat back down. Apparently, up until then, he hadn't known all the good cabins had been taken.

"Well," Chiron called. "This proves to be an interesting match. I can't wait. And senior counselors," he added. "After Capture the Flag tomorrow, I'm calling a meeting. It is crucial no one misses it."

The rest of dinner was extremely awkward. Everyone was jumpy and unsure, because Chiron was jumpy and unsure. Whatever he'd meant by "It's crucial no one misses it" was flying through everyone's minds.

And only Chiron knew what the hell was going on.

**Is the tension registering on that end? Believe me, incorporations are coming with everything. This is going to be one gigantic mess of plotlines that will all link together in the end. I swear. **

**Review.**


	14. Chapter 14

**This is an intense chapter that I'm leaving off at a cliff-hanger on. Be warned. There is stronger language here than in the other chapters, and the themes are significantly more mature. But, seeming you've read this far, the added warning from this should prepare you enough for what's coming.**

Chapter Fourteen

Who I Really Am

The sing-a-long, it's safe to say, sucked.

The entire time the large campfire in the middle-which supposed to grow and change color according to mood-was barely smoldering and was a sickly blue color. Everyone murmured the songs, and although I was quiet and pretended like I didn't care, it became clear very quickly that Chiron's uneasiness was setting the camp on edge.

I was sitting next to Sam, who hadn't seemed to notice the tension yet. She was laughing and having a great time during the sing-a-long, nudging me and looking at me gratefully. While everyone was muttering "Lime in the Coconut," Sam leaned over and hissed in my ear, "I love this place! Maybe you really can stick around as Eric. It's so awesome!"

I looked at her hopeful, still undamaged eyes and couldn't bring myself to tell her that I was going to take a permanent vacation from her life in two months. I couldn't spoil her mood, not now, when it was only a matter of time before whatever was worrying Chiron circulated around Camp and Sam's idea of perfection was shattered into a million pieces. I hated myself for giving her the same fake half-smile I had perfected after years of hiding my pain and grief when I hadn't ever before. But Sam didn't deserve to find out just how crappy the gods really were. And how selfish they could be.

Sam started swaying back and forth, her excited demeanor lifting the spirits of other Hermes kids. And in turn, Hermes lightened the mood for everyone else. Gradually, by the time Chiron said goodnight, the campfire was at its usual orange tint.

Everyone shuffled past the flame, and I got a wild idea. Digging into my pocket for the remnants of that energy bar from Hermes, I tossed the crumbs into the flames and muttered quickly under my breath, "Tyche, goddess of fortune, help us." Then the mob of campers ushered me toward the cabins.

Travis was the last one to enter the cabin, and when I heard the door slam, I knew he was in a sour mood. "Shit," he swore loudly, not even paying attention to the affronted youngsters staring at him in shock. "Can't we get a fucking break?" he demanded, throwing up his arms and kicking a drawer so hard that it banged. "It's barely half a decade after we have to fight the Lord of Time, and now we've got a brand new hell to contend with? It's not fu..."

"Fair. We know, Travis," Connor hastily agreed, interrupting his livid brother before he cussed yet again. He collapsed on his bunk and buried his face in his hands. And that's when I saw how dangerously close everyone was to breaking down and crying. I imagined the other cabins were much the same way, only their counselors weren't having a mental breakdown. "Wait," Connor said, perking up with a smile spreading across his face. "How do we know it's another war? It could be, I don't know, another cabin being built, or maybe the gods requested a quest, or..."

"Do you really believe that, Connor?" Chris snapped irritably. I noted that he was probably spending too much time with his girlfriend, Clarisse. Then again, I had no idea if they were even still dating. I legitimately hoped they were, because Chris and Clarisse kind of evened each other out.

"Shouldn't you be making out with your wife, Rodriguez?" demanded the brunette I recognized from before, when Travis was talking about the unclaimed Matthew.

Chris tensed. "We're not married. We don't have the money." The brunette rolled her eyes.

"No money, or no balls?" she smiled, and Chris surged to his feet.

"Calm down!" Connor called out. "Will you guys just calm down. I think it's best if we all just get some sleep. No doubt Annabeth, Nico, and Clarisse are already in the Big House grilling Chiron like crazy. Whatever the problem is, Annabeth'll plan a solution, Nico will scare it's daylights out, and Clarisse will kick its ass. Problem solved."

Everyone busted up. Except for Sam and me. Sam had only just caught on when Travis slammed the door, and now she looked apprehensive. She looked like she had back on the streets; jumpy, unsure of herself, scared. I hated seeing her so anxious.

"Yeah, and then Clarisse will get a nice big happy reunion with her honorary husband." One of Chris' siblings laughed, nudging him in the side. He turned a bright shade of red, and I raised an eyebrow.

"So you're married to the Ares girl?" I asked. Chris sighed dejectedly and shook his head.

"No," he told me. "But we've been dating for a while now and..."

"Six years!" someone called out.

"Yeah," Chris agreed weakly. "But Clarisse...she isn't the marrying type. She's happy the way things are. Doesn't matter what these guys think." Chris jerked his thumb and the pushy brunette laughing her head off at him.

I shrugged. Secretly, I was relieved, but on the outside, I was just showing annoyance and impatience. I climbed up to my bunk and lay back on my pillow, but apparently the argument wasn't finished between the nervous siblings.

"Travis, you're going to tell us what's up, aren't you? You're not going to just let us hang, are you?" asked the brunette, sounding fearful.

"Of course not, Lizzie. I don't keep that type of crap from you guys." Travis walked over to light switch and poised his hand over it, pausing for just a moment. "And I'll fight with you even if it kills me."

Before I could decide whether or not Travis was joking, he shut off the lights and I was submerged in darkness.

Suddenly, my heart began to race. The fevered pounding of the major organ made me heady with in the influx of blood to my system. My lungs felt like they were being constricted, and I gasped for air desperately. Frantically, I clawed at my shirt, needing to breathe, to open up my airway. I tore up my collar, pulling it off my neck, scratching the skin with shaky, pale fingers. Was it me, or did those tiny extremities feel unnaturally cold...?

"Help," I croaked. I couldn't believe I was asking for help now, but I was so damned close to sucking in my last breath that all I could think about was _breathe, dammit, breathe_. My right hand groped around on the bed and grabbed a handful of blanket, gripping it for all I was worth. My vision fluctuated, flickering between crystal clarity and a jumbled mix of nonsense. "Help," I repeated one last time, inhaling as deeply as I could as my vision began to darken.

I wheezed, not being able to exhale or draw in more air, and blacked out.

I found myself standing in the middle of hell.

Apparently, the Torturer had decided it would be Dante's Inferno today, because the white-hot walls that glowed through the otherwise impassable blackness felt like I was being roasted where I stood. And I actually wasn't standing. I was walking alongside the Torturer, who looked the definition of pissed off.

His brisk, uncharacteristic walk threw me for a complete loop, his arms swinging unrestrained at his sides like an ape rather than his graceful and sadistically casual stroll. On either side of him, monsters jogged, trying to keep up with their dangerously impatient master.

"Go," he ordered the one on his left, waving his hand. "Bring me a juicy one." The monster groveled endlessly as it backed away and ran back down the white corridor, to the cells just behind them. "And you," he stopped dead and turned to the left goon. The monster jogged several feet ahead before realized he'd been singled out. He seemed pretty nervous about that, avoiding eye contact like it was the plague. The Torturer jabbed his forefinger into his chest. "Bring me everything." The monster's eyes widened and he started nodding, a cold smile beginning to form on his twisted face.

After both monsters were out of sight, the Torturer marched up to the wall I recognized well. It, too, glowed the same bright color of the rest of the prison, but it gave off a little bit more light than everything else. Above it, the trapdoor to reality loomed, unopened since my daring escape. I hadn't ever seen the Torturer so close to breaking. Every fiber of his being shook violently as he surveyed the wall carefully, and the door to freedom. The door even he had never quite been able to reach.

Then I saw the scaffoldings along the walls, built almost to the trapdoor. And they seemed to be magically growing and expanding, but freedom continuously got farther and farther away, never accessible. The Fates would not allow the Torturer the luxury of seeing daylight.

With an exasperated yell, my old tormenter punched the wall, his hand driving through the normally hard, hot clay and pulling back a lump of glowing earth, gradually dying down to a normal, reddish hue. "It's because of you," he growled. "It's because of you that I've lost nearly everything!" His face contorted in rage and he stared above. He shook his fist lividly, trembling with boiling anger. It was such a human sight I was shocked.

"Damn you, Eric!" he shouted, his voice carrying throughout the prison. "You might think that you've escaped from me now, but mark my words, very soon, very, very soon, the real fires and blizzards of Tartarus will descend upon your ungrateful little head, and your precious, flawless world will see what it really means to be scarred. You can't escape from me, Eric! I'm unearthing who you really are as we speak. I will find out your name, and after that, I'll find out your game." Then he paused. "I just need someone to anchor me to the world above."

The Torturer looked down at the sand clenched in his fist, slipping through his open, splayed white fingers and falling in trails to the ground. Then a crooked, contented smile spread across his mouth as he turned to face the kicking and screaming youth being dragged toward him, yelling her head off and begging for mercy and for freedom. The Torturer's face returned to its normal sadistic grin and he drew his favorite knife.

"It appears, Eric," he muttered. "That you are going to be facing your worst fear very, very soon."

I woke with a start, beads of sweat falling from my brow onto the bed. My shirt was drenched and the bed sheets were a darker shade of white because of my perspiration. And I was shaking uncontrollably.

I looked around and realized I was in the infirmary again. Next to me, Annabeth was reading an architecture book, which I found unsurprising. What was surprising was the fact that she smiled when she realized I was awake. "Lay back down," she ordered. "No need to overexert yourself yet." I ignored her and started to kick my legs off the bed, but she grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back down.

"What exactly is your problem, Chase?" I demanded indignantly. Annabeth's calculating grey eyes bore into my own green and I felt like I was being interrogated.

"Why'd you do it?" she asked unexpectedly.

I shook my head. "Why'd I do what?" I smacked her hand away and sat up, reaching for a glass of water by my bedside.

"Why did you lie to us?"

The glass shattered on the ground.

Slowly, carefully, _fearfully_, I turned to face Annabeth, heart racing. I glanced around the room and saw that aside from the two of us, it was empty. That didn't make sense. Annabeth would never have agreed to be in a room alone with a man who could very easily be insane or aggressive. She wasn't stupid. So why was she watching me so intently, leaning forward and resting her elbows against her knees, hands folded calmly. She didn't look nervous or uneasy or even cautious. The look in her eyes wasn't apprehension. It was shame.

"What?" I asked carefully, meeting her incriminating eyes straight on. Annabeth sighed and shook her head dejectedly.

"I can't see why you would have even _considered_ faking your death, Percy. You beat Kronos. You were coming home a war hero." She motioned with her hands to punctuate her words, but she really didn't have to. When she looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. "You were coming _home_, and you threw it all away. But what I don't understand, what I can't grasp, is _why_. Why leave? Why fake your death? It just doesn't make sense."

Her eyes almost seemed to plead. She looked ashamed, maybe hurt, but she didn't appear to hate me in any way. She was calm, accepting. I couldn't bring myself to lie to her, but I had to. Somehow, I had to convince her she had the wrong idea. "Chase," I began, but she waved her hand dismissively.

"I know what you're going to say, Percy. You're going to deny all of this. You're going to tell me I'm nuts or that I have the wrong idea. You're going to revert back to that gruff, sarcastic exterior you seem so fond of and I might actually listen to you. But I won't let you keep lying like this, Percy. It's for your own good that I'm doing this."

The look of guilt now visible in her eyes told me she hadn't just uncovered my darkest secret. She'd gone to great lengths to make sure it wouldn't be a secret anymore.

My eyes widened and darted to the shut door. In a moment of panic, I surged to my feet and jingled the doorknob, but it wouldn't open. It was locked by the outside. I whirled around and looked around desperately, casting my eyes for something to escape out of. I ran over to a window above one of the beds and tried to open it, but I saw that on the outside it had been locked. Travis' mischievous smile entered my vision and I knew all other exits were likewise blocked.

I had been discovered.

I jumped down from the bed and looked at Annabeth as seriously as I could. I tried to tell her everything with just a look, to convey how sorry I was and how much I hated the prospect of hurting Camp ever again, but that I had no choice. "You wanted to know why I left." I stated calmly. It wasn't a question.

Warily, Annabeth nodded.

"I left because Hera would have killed you if I hadn't." It hit Annabeth right then; what she had done. How she had doomed Camp Half-Blood without even meaning to. "I know you've got something to tell everyone outside that it's safe to let me out. I need you to convince them I'm staying, alright? You're the only one that understands." Annabeth swallowed and shook her head.

"No," she said quietly. "Percy, I can't. I can't let you go again."

"Annabeth," I said sharply, grabbing her shoulders and catching her off-guard. She looked up at me, alarmed, and I saw understanding and remorse spread across her face. "I don't have the time to explain. All I can tell you is that if I'm not far, far away from camp, _soon_, Hera will kill you all."

Annabeth didn't respond for a long moment. Instead, she just stood there, shrinking into herself while I held her shoulder urgently. I was so close to her that I felt her breath against my face, blowing my hair aside. And then, measuredly, Annabeth nodded.

I let her go.

She walked over to the door and hit it in a unique series of about ten that I would never have guessed. It wasn't Morse code, but it was a cousin of the communications network and it tipped off Camp to the fact that I was "safe." Travis appeared in the doorway seconds later, beaming. "Nice to see you again, Perce." I nodded thoughtfully and walked toward the open door. Travis didn't move.

With a shaky hand, I gripped his arm and grimaced. "I'm sorry about this, Travis. I wish I could stay." Just as the meaning of my words dawned on him and his eyes widened, I pushed Travis aside. He landed on the ground, hard. I would have stuck around to help him, but already I was being swarmed by campers of varying levels of anger. But all of them were bound and determined to see me stopped.

Annabeth was at Travis' side in an instant, helping him to his feet. But when he tried to pursue me, she stopped him with a kind of limiting hug. Travis fought with her, screaming, calling her names, but I knew Annabeth was explaining things to him because he gradually slowed and stopped, staring down at her before looking up at me. All I could bring myself to do was nod the affirmative. Travis looked away and waved his hand. I understood. _GO!_

And that was exactly what I intended to do.

I sprinted for all I was worth toward the barrier, but camp had anticipated the move and a mob of demigods stood between me and freedom. I swore vehemently and skidded to a stop, grass coming out of the muddy ground under my feet. I started to alter my course and head for the sea, already muttering the prayer my father had taught me under my breath. "Father, Lord over the Sea, Earthshaker, Stormbringer, God of Horses, send me a ship." Then I stopped and slipped on the wet ground again.

Why was it wet? It was summer. There should have been no moisture in the ground.

That was when I realized. It was raining.

I looked heavenward and breathed, "No." just as the torrent began to descend. My face was instantly blanketed by the hailing, stormy sky. Hailstones the size of baseballs started plummeting from the clouds, which had only just magically appeared in the lightening sky. The rising sky was blackened by the storm clouds forming above.

The campers looked up and around, clearly surprised by the sudden absence of weather control. Camp's barriers were supposed to defend against unwanted storms. It was climate controlled. But apparently, the immunity to outside weather didn't stand up against vengeful goddess, because it was raining hard.

Then, suddenly, I felt my arms and face sting. I looked down at my shirt and saw that it was beginning to sizzle wherever the rain touched it. In other words: everywhere.

In no time, my shirt was burned away and my jeans were following suit, but I didn't have time to be embarrassed. Everyone else was experiencing similar problems; only it wasn't just their clothing that was smoking.

Agonized screams filled my ears as campers desperately tried to shield themselves from the torrents, shrinking into themselves as the acidic rain soaked through their orange shirts and scalded their skin. Several campers, while attempting to save their siblings and friends, found themselves fallen by point-specific lightning strikes, all patterned after the first and most powerful master bolt. The luminescent yellow beams of Hera's rage descended with loud, immediate _booms_ jarring me and causing my teeth to rattle. The otherwise black night was punctuated by the lightning.

"Everyone inside!" Annabeth screamed, gathering up injured campers and helping them to their cabins. But the cabins were breaking down, falling apart; succumbing to Hera's might. Already, the older Athena and Apollo cabins lay in a gooey and broken heap on the ground, melted into submission by the unnatural rainfall.

People were rapidly forced from their homes and back out into the merciless weather. Several more demigods fell, but a fair share of them didn't die from the lightning. They died from the rain. They were melted down like steel in one of Hephaestus' forges; reduced to the chemical heap of skin and blood they were made from. Campers who accidentally stepped in the remains of their friends were horribly sick, and the pause in their fleeing gave the rain time to enact its vengeance upon them.

The worst part of it was that although I felt the negative effects and the rain and saw it all around me; I myself was not harmed by it. The rain landed on my skin, and yes, I was wet by it, but because of my invincibility, I could not be killed. I was doomed to watch as the life I had failed to destroy was destroyed for me. Hera's words that day five years ago came flooding back to me in a rush. "If you do not leave Camp Half-Blood, I will see to it that there is no Camp Half-Blood for you to return to."

My worst nightmare was coming true. The naive daydreams of the past where I hoped and prayed that miraculously Hera would find it in her heart to let me return as Percy Jackson or that she had been bluffing all along were instantly crushed by the sights I saw unraveling before my very eyes.

Hera was destroying Camp Half-Blood.

That's when I noticed that the Big House had yet to be so much as scratched by the horrible, abnormal storm. Relief flooded me and I yelled after Annabeth. "Look!" she followed my finger and her eyes filled with hope as she limped along with Jake Mason in tow toward the only hope the surviving campers had left.

"To the Big House!" I screamed, my voice carrying even over the storm. "Everybody get to the Big House!" Those who were not too far gone and lost in the chaotic happenings made quick work of sprinting for their last chance. I could see in their faces that they were all hoping the same thing I was. _Maybe, if we wait it out long enough, it will go away_. It was a dim, meaningless hope, but it was all we had.

I waved my arms, inviting the others. But there were too many people lost in the horror of the moment, kneeling in the remains of their friends, letting the puddles drop thickly from their hands. It was the most disgusting and nauseating sight I had ever laid eyes on. It was worse than anything the Torturer could drum up.

This was the end of the world.

I pulled Clarisse up from the blob that was once Chris Rodriguez. She stared at it in shock. "He proposed." She muttered dazedly. "He proposed, but I never got the chance to say yes. He proposed!" She started fighting against me, trying to reach him, but I dragged the hysterical Clarisse la Rue along, leading her toward the Big House so she didn't kill herself grieving for her almost-husband.

We reached the river, and I noticed that people sloshing through the water were almost immediately melting like the Wicked Witch. "Cross the bridge!" I called after the survivors, locking Clarisse's arms behind her back and pulling her along. I was panting heavily, beads of sweat falling from my brow, but I didn't care at that point. I had already killed so many of my friends; the only thing I was really focusing on at that moment was getting the last of them to safety.

But Clarisse was strong and she wanted to go back to Chris. "Clarisse, please!" I begged. "Stop fighting with me!" She didn't seem to be listening to me. Eventually I was forced to pass her on to her brother, Sherman, who stared at her. "Chris...he..." I couldn't finish. Sherman nodded and dragged her the rest of the way against the wilting strawberry fields to safety.

I stayed by the water and redirected campers who were too distraught to help themselves. Annabeth's group of scoundrels was the last across the bridge. I felt my stomach constrict when I saw that most of them were covered in what was left of their friends and siblings. Annabeth was crying hysterically. "Malcolm," she wailed, burying her face in my shirt and immediately drawing back, her face burned by the acid gathered on me. She looked shocked. "How are you not...?"

"Poseidon," I lied. I had never gotten the chance to tell her about my Curse of Achilles. Now I doubted I would ever get the chance. "He's protecting me."

That's when I noticed something. Annabeth was standing in the rain, and she wasn't getting burnt or hurt. I looked up, and as more of the rain fell, I noticed I was still dry. I laughed hysterically. It was over. Hera had stopped.

Annabeth noticed it too and wrapped her arms around my neck, laughing. The horror was over. We were alive. "C'mon," I told her. "Let's tell the others and get cleaned up." When we got to the door, both of us laughing from the relief of still being alive, I motioned that she go in before me. "Ladies first," I told her. She smiled warmly, and I bent down to kiss her lightly on the lips. She looked taken aback, but refrained from slapping me immediately and stepped inside.

I turned and saw that the trauma of our ordeal was being washed away. The only thing I could figure was that the Olympians had talked Hera down and she'd called off Armageddon. "I'm glad you saw reason." I muttered, turning to step inside.

But before I could cross the threshold and greet a charging Sam, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I only had enough time to scream, "Sam, stop!" before the lightning bolt descended on the Big House.


	15. Chapter 15

**Wow. Apparently, my evil plan for freaking you people out worked like a charm. Scaring people really works to get commentary.**

Chapter Fifteen

I Go Borderline Insane

"No!"

"Ah!"

The first exclamation was my own as I sat bolt upright in bed, a river of sweat pouring from my brow. The latter was Travis' desperate scream as he flailed his arms around in search of a handhold and fell backward, landing on the ground with a definite thump.

I stared down at the traumatized and temporarily stunned son of Hermes uncomprehendingly, convinced I was seeing wrong. But it was most definitely the freckle-faced, brown-haired, mischievously smiling son of Hermes. Alive, uninjured, and seeming unscathed by the downpour of acidic rain.

That was when I looked around and saw the other characteristically elfish features of Travis' brothers and sisters, including the allegedly deceased Chris Rodriguez, who was currently throwing on his shirt and watching me with a curious look. None of them-not a single one-was marred to any extent by the storm that my tormented mind had somehow convinced me was happening.

It had been a dream.

I swallowed and found that my throat was dry. I drew in a deep breath and lifted up my trembling hand for inspection. It was quaking worse than San Francisco. I scolded myself mentally for being so gullible. But there was a certain degree of unbearable fear pooling in my stomach.

It had felt so _real_. Looking around at Cabin Eleven and all the carefree faces therein, I couldn't help but flashback to that horrible, tangible ordeal I had experienced in my _mind_. I was no stranger to the realism that could be conjured and created from the depths of the subconscious-my stay with the Torturer had proven to me just how vulnerable the mind could be to invasion or pessimism-but what I had just been forced to deal with exceeded anything I had ever felt before. At least in the surface world, that is.

"Percy," hissed an undeveloped female voice into my ear, startling me. I jumped up and turned, wide-eyed, before I realized it was a concerned Sam trying to comfort me. I forced myself to swallow, despite the irritating dryness in my throat, and flash her a reassuring smile. But Sam had been traveling with me for months before we unwittingly arrived at Camp Half-Blood, and she knew my lies like the back of her hand. She could see a false grimace when she saw one stretch across my face. "You do know the scar doesn't fool me, right?" she teased, lightly punching me in the arm.

I laughed weakly, trying to maintain the facade I had worked so hard to keep up, but the mask was failing. I was losing myself in the turmoil raging inside of me, and no matter how hard I squinted and fought, that damned, useless helplessly kept creeping back up on me, undermining the man I had become and turning me into an incoherent wreck.

I pursed my lips and found that they, too, were dry and chapped. They wouldn't bleed, courtesy of invincibility, but they would hurt like a son of a bitch every time I tried to talk.

I wanted fresh air, but I decided fresh water was the priority.

I kicked my legs over the bed and lowered myself onto the ladder. It shouldn't have been as hard as it was for me to descend from the six or so foot elevation I was at, but as shaky as my entire body was, it was like scaling Mount Tam all over again. My sweaty, unsteady fingers coiled around the step, but they slipped and I tumbled to the ground.

I landed on my feet-unlike Travis, who was still massaging his tailbone-and a searing pain raced up my left leg in answer to the unstuck landing. I swore loudly, drawing even more unwanted attention, and limped it off angrily, shoving aside curious campers on my way to the water fountain in the back. Before I had completely traversed the thick crowd, (Hermes had the most children out of the Olympian gods. What else do you expect from a guy that travels everywhere?) a sympathetic glass of water magically appeared in front of me. Too desperate to say thank you or retort, I greedily clamped it in my moist palms and lifted it to my lips. I drained it most of the way when someone rammed my shoulder from behind and it slipped from my grasp.

I watched it, as if in slow motion, as it tumbled to the ground, water droplets flying from the crystalline rim. It had approximately four or five feet of space to clear before it hit the tile floor, but it didn't take that long to clear it. In reality. To me, an eternity passed before it finally, mercifully collided with the earth and shattered into a million tiny, sharp, clear pieces of glass. I watched as some of the shards rebounded back into the air and then finally connected with the ground again.

"Whoops," someone muttered behind me. The klutz, I assumed. "Sorry about that. I'll help you clean it up. Just let me get the bro..." But I was no longer listening. My mind was elsewhere, remembering the glass from my dream as it hit the ground and broke apart. Sinking to my knees as Hermes children bustled around me, I started gathering it up bare-handed.

I almost wanted one of the sharp remains to slice into my palm or imbed itself in my skin. I wanted to feel the undeniably _human_ sting of life, of reality. I needed something, a form of anchor functioning much like to the small of my back to keep me _here_, to keep me alive, and fighting. Because every day I slipped a little more. Every day I went a little insane. And I wasn't sure how much more warranty on my sanity I had left.

For some absurd reason, a conversation with my mother fluttered through my head. I'd discussed it with her shortly after the Battle of the Labyrinth when I was fifteen. It was after I'd woken up in a cold sweat, like I had just done, and been forced to recollect the events of my dream. I still remembered it.

It had opened up with Mount Tam. I was standing in front of Atlas, who was lumbering underneath the sky and swearing loudly. His stony gaze focused on mine, and his lip quirked into an unmistakable smile. "Are you ready, puny demigod?" he asked me. "Are you ready to decide the fate of the world? Because one way or another, you're going to have to choose. Are you going to choose correctly?" His booming laughter echoed down the mountainside, filling my ears with its inhuman and sadistic glee. He basked in my mind as I crumpled to my knees, curling into a ball and rocking back and forth, chanting "Stop" under my breath over and over.

When, finally, the laughter had stopped, I was standing back at Camp Half-Blood, but it wasn't the peaceful valley I recognized from my many summers. It was engulfed in swirling flames, and my friends were fighting tooth and nail against an endless army of monsters, pouring from nothingness in an unstoppable force. And all of them-every last one-they were looking at me desperately. "Choose, Percy." They pleaded. "Save us." But when I tried to speak, when I tried to help them, my lips were glued shut.

And then I was fighting an army of monsters alone, the surge of demons gradually cowing me until I could hardly raise my arms in a defensive motion as they all repeatedly kicked and clawed and punched me. When everything was over and the monsters had cleared away, there was a funeral for all the fallen demigods. And in front of their blazing shrouds, the flickering forms of those lost heroes glowered at me with uncontained hatred.

The first to speak was Bianca di Angelo, her eyes sad, wistful, and angry. "You lied to my brother." She told me. "You broke your promise to him. If you had just tried, if you had fought, maybe this wouldn't have happened. I wish you'd never let me join the hunt."

I tried, futilely, to say something to defend myself or at least assure Bianca I hadn't wanted her to die, but the words stuck in my throat. But then it was Castor's turn. "Did you ever take the time to talk to me, Percy? You were always the big hero at Camp, and you never could be bothered to talk to the lame, useless son of Dionysus, could you? Did you ever even try to comfort my brother? No, because menial tasks like that aren't fit for the brave, powerful son of Poseidon."

Zoe Nightshade was next. "Perhaps I was right about thee at the beginning, Percy. You are like Hercules."

And finally, Lee Fletcher, son of Apollo, drew his bow and the string screamed as he pulled it back, arrow notched and pointed at my face. "We think it would be better if another child of the Big Three took on the prophecy."

And then he let the arrow fly.

After I was done talking to my mother about the nightmare, she sat down me down on the couch somberly and excused herself for a moment while she went and got me something to drink. When she came back, she had a can of Coke in her hands, already opened and died blue. I gaped at her, wordlessly accepting the drink and touching it to my lips in disbelief. My mother had never let me drink soda past seven, saying that the caffeine would keep me awake. She was right, of course. Caffeine overdoses coupled with my ADHD was sure to equal chaos and restlessness. So why was she letting me drink it now?

As I replayed the scene in my mind, cupping the glass in my hands and walking over to the nearby trashcan to dispose of it, I noted things I hadn't noted then. Such as my mother's obvious anxiety. And how tense she had been. I was used to my mother being worried. She was always fretting over me and the monsters hunting me down, but never before had she seemed so fearful. And it was only in those moment five years later that I realized she hadn't been afraid of monsters hurting her son. She had been afraid of her son hurting himself.

But at that time, all I understood was that my mother was freaked out and letting me drink sugar. That in and of itself had been enough to thoroughly unnerve me. "Percy," my mom said, unfurling her clenched fingers and patting me gently on the knee. I swallowed down a mouthful of soda and watched my mother uneasily. There were crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and bags developing darkly underneath them. She was a beautiful woman, especially considering her age, but the long hours of work on her novel had begun to age her steadily. Now she only looked a few years younger than she really was.

My mom laughed weakly and turned her caring blue eyes to me. "A mother hopes she never has to talk to her son about this, but when I found out I was pregnant, I knew..." she swallowed. I could tell she was having a lot of difficulty telling me whatever she was trying to tell me. So instead of badgering her to hurry up, I sat in submissive, polite silence and waited for my mom to finish.

While she was silent, I looked around the room at my stepdad's, Paul's, things; all stacked in boxes piled high. He was moving into our apartment for his marriage with my mom. They weren't having a big ceremony, but my mom assured me the small gathering they were having was welcome to my friends at Camp. I hadn't particularly cared, and now, after my dream, I wasn't so sure I wanted to ever see them again. It might be too awkward.

It was amazing how real the emotions were to me now, just as immediate as they were then. The anxiety, the nervousness, the jittery feeling of anticipation that preceded every life-altering blow. It was all as real to me now, while I scooped up pieces of glass onto my twenty-one year old hands as it had been back then when I was still a kid. And slowly, gradually, I started to realize that Hera been right on the hill two nights ago. Even at sixteen, I was no stranger to danger or fear. Even at sixteen, I was closer to a man than half the actual grown men I had come in contact with over my young life. My already marred young life. Just sixteen, and time had taken its irreversible toll.

My mother's unease only got worse, but she managed to choke out what she was going to say. "Percy, I don't know how much you know about PTSD, but..." In an instant, I was on my feet, Coke sloshing in the can as I slammed it onto the coffee table.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I demanded, already going defensive. I couldn't believe how I was reacting, but the minute my mother had brought up the mental disorder, I was ready to fight something. Because I already knew where this conversation was going.

My mother looked at me sympathetically, and the look in her eyes made me want to cry. She looked like I had hurt her somehow. I never wanted to hurt her. "You've been through so much already, Percy. It's a very real possibility that you have a minor case of..."

"Are you calling me crazy?" I snapped, stepping away from my mother when she tried to reach toward me. I couldn't believe my young, rebellious teenage ears. I refused to believe what I was hearing, and I was stupid for it. "I'm not insane, mom. I'm perfectly fi..."

"Percy," my mother said desperately. "Post-Traumatic Stress does not mean you're insane. It just means..."

"That something's wrong with me." I finished. I couldn't believe how I sounded. Even as I said the words, they sounded snarky and ungrateful, but it was the first time in my life that I had experienced the mind-numbing impossibility of something intangible, something I couldn't fight away or argue into submission. I didn't want to consider the chance that maybe; just maybe, the things I had experienced had begun to take their toll. At the time, I was still young and rebellious and ignorant. PTSD was something that happened to the soldiers coming home from Iraq, not teenage kids who lived in the city. It wasn't possible.

"No," my mom took a step toward me, but I placed the coffee table in between us. Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Percy, please. Just think about it, okay? I would pester you. Just...give it some thought. If you want help, any help at all, feel free to come and ask. I'm always here for you. You know that, right?" My mother sounded almost hysterical. Just to placate her, because I was too scared and dumbfounded to know what else to do, I nodded.

"Yeah, mom." I told her. "Of course." But there was something in my chest that told me if I didn't talk to her then and there; I would never get the chance. I gave her a strained hug anyway, pulling back as quickly as I had leaned in, letting her give me a kiss on the forehead as she smiled and assured me everything would be okay. That she was sure it was just her motherly emotions getting in the way and there was absolutely nothing wrong.

But we both knew better than that. We both knew I wasn't that lucky, and that the mental damage had already begun. I wondered if maybe-if I had gotten the help sooner, talked to someone, confessed my fears to my mom or Annabeth or _someone_, than maybe I never would have been forced to leave Camp Half-Blood. Part of me questioned the true motives for my banishment. Part of me thought that it had been done to stop my friends from getting hurt by my fragile mental state. If I had tackled it before it got out of hand, before the battle tore my sanity even farther, than maybe I would still be Percy Jackson.

But those were just the delusions of a madman.

**Alright, they aren't dead! Celebrate, jump up and down and hate me for faking you out! My stupid computer wouldn't let me upload this, so I overhauled it because of the delay and rewrote it. Miracle of miracles that it came out this good. I'm writing some seriously gut-wrenching stuff now, and I don't know why. **

**Ha! I knew there were more of you reading this than you let on! I caught you! You will never get away with silence again! I found you out! Aha! **


	16. Chapter 16

**I actually am sorry about Chapter Fourteen. It was a little evil of me to leave you guys hanging like that. It doesn't mean I'm going to change the grand, ultimate finale of part one. When I finally get there, you guys will be gripping the edges of your seats. Mark my words. Until then, you've got to deal with what I hand you. But more gut-wrenching chapters are ahead. I'm just giving you a temporary break from the depressing scenes.**

Chapter Sixteen

A Sudden Disappearance

After I disposed of the last shards of glass, which made dark clinking sounds on the bottom of the trashcan, I overheard Travis discussing the shower schedule with one of his inquired younger siblings. "Yeah, seeming for one of the captains, we get first dibs on the showers." I tensed while I climbed up to my bunk with the intention of somewhat straightening the blankets thereon. "Athena was supposed to get it, but Annabeth was persuaded to let the smelly mass of Hermes kids at it first."

I couldn't help but feel a rush of relief at his words. It had been so long since I'd actually _bathed_ that the prospect of cleanliness was a foreign concept. Despite myself, I scraped at the caked dirt on my arms and sighed in anticipation.

Shortly after my relief, Cabin Eleven set out to the showers, where Sam and I parted ways; her diverting with the rest of the girls (who were seriously outnumbered by us guys) while I headed off behind Connor.

The showers were cheap opaque glass for privacy's sake, but there really wasn't anything for safety of mind. I remembered that while I had been here, pranks were constantly being pulled when people were at their most vulnerable. There were several embarrassing "singing in the shower" stories floating around Camp, I was sure. But I had never had a major problem with modesty, and what few hang-ups I had had been dispelled by years on the impolite streets. If you're not comfortable being naked around strangers, you can kiss being clean completely goodbye. As it stood, I had been forced to resort to flimsy pieces of fabric wet down in public restrooms and water fountains to get the job down.

So needless to say, the jarring sensation of fresh, cool water running down my back was enough to make me call out in alarm. I choked most of it back and disguised it with a cough, but a significantly more feminine outcry from the girls' section told me Sam hadn't been nearly as stealthy. I chuckled and reached for the bar of soap.

Although there was nothing I wanted more in the world than to stay in that shower for hours and end until I was pruned and wrinkly, but time constraints made that impossible. Sooner or later, I would be chased out, and I intended to get rid of as much dirt as I could in the meantime. So my furious scrubbing assault on my filthy arms was without mercy and slowness. The water beat down on me, sending satisfying goose bumps up my arms as I soaped and lathered.

I used the shampoo hastily, understanding my time in paradise was nearly up. I made the crown of my head a foamy white mess before finally rinsing it out down the drain. When I was done, my hair was lighter and my body felt stronger. Then I remembered that I had, without meaning to, given myself the day's boost. Water, in whatever form, healed me and rejuvenated me.

Triumphant, I shut off the flow of water and tied a towel around my midsection. By the time I was out, the majority of campers were already dressed, with the exception of a few individuals being loudly screamed at from the other side of the glass. One of them was singing.

I looked around for my clothes, which I had thrown in the appropriate locker area, but they weren't there. I closed my eyes in exasperation and shook my head. "Seriously, guys? I brand new and you think it's funny to take my clothes."

"Relax," Travis called, gathering up a shirt-and-pants combo and tossing it through the air at my head. "Those things were about as disgusting as it gets. We tossed them out and got you new ones. Courtesy of the Camp Store, which I just so happen to run." Just then, Connor stepped out of the shower, pants already on and drying his hair with the towel provided.

"You mean the Camp Store we _both_ run, Travis?" Connor said innocently, tossing the towel at him. It hit his face, causing the eyewitnesses to laugh immaturely. I ignored the chitchat and threw on my pants, hesitating on the shirt.

It was orange and short-sleeved, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was a Camp Half-Blood tee with the silhouette of a Pegasus on the front. But it was all I had in the way of clothes and I wasn't about to throw a tamper-tantrum because of the style. I threw it on without a word.

Travis pulled the towel off his face and smirked at me. "Orange is your color." He teased. I glowered at him and flung another towel at him, aiming for his face. His smirk disappeared when I flipped him off as it flew through the air.

With that, I walked about. Sam was still wet from her time in the showers, but she too was dressed in an orange t-shirt and jeans. We exchanged a pleasant smile when we saw each other and she ran over to give me a hug. "Thank you," she muttered quietly. I looked down at her, eyebrow quirked. "For giving me back a home." And with that, she ran off again to go laugh with a group of girls roughly her age.

I got a euphoric feeling at that point, knowing Sam was happy and safe. It let me rest assured that when I was gone, Sam wouldn't risk her life to come looking for me. But I hastily killed the smile spreading across my face when I heard Travis and the others right behind me. I turned my expression steely and impassive. "Hey, Eric," Travis called, waving after me. "You know about Capture the Flag, right?"

"I know enough to know it's got a lot riding on it." I told him irritably, my tone conveying how stupid I thought it was. Actually, I remembered how fun Capture the Flag used to be and I was secretly excited to get back out onto the field and attack enemy positions. It got the blood pumping. "And that there are more than likely sharp weapons involved." The last had no lack of glee to it, which made Travis take a nervous step back.

"Yeah, well, we're figuring out who's defense and who's offense. We're figuring on putting you on defense." I tensed. "What's wrong?" I swallowed with difficulty, remembering my first Capture the Flag game and how catastrophically it ended. I.e., I was claimed.

"Nothing," I said quickly, straightening up and controlling my memories. "But I figure I'm more use to you hacking and slashing through enemy lines." Travis pursed his lips nervously.

"Okay, here's the issue. You remember Clarisse, you girl you beat yesterday?" I nodded. "Well, none of the rest of us can beat her, period. You, however, gave her a run for her money right off the bat, and that makes you our, like, secret weapon. And Clarisse always, I mean _always_ plays offense. So if she cuts through our defense like it's butter, we've got nothing to keep her from carrying our flag across the barrier and taking the gold."

I frowned. I understood Travis' reasoning, and frankly, I kind of wanted to win this game. But I didn't want to fight Clarisse on defense, especially not with her goons around. Part of me was horribly afraid I'd freeze up with the memory of what had happened when I was twelve and give the Torturer just that extra handhold to drive me insane. I couldn't let him have that. Not after the nightmare.

"Wait," Chris said, shoving to the front. "What if I told you Clarisse wasn't playing offense this time? What if I told you Annabeth has her working outer defense?" Travis turned to stare at him. I did too.

"I'd call you a treacherous sack of centaur dung that you didn't tell us before. And how do you know your girlfriend wasn't lying to you." Chris winced.

"I overheard an argument between her and Annabeth. She made me swear not to say anything, but...Eric is a good fighter. I don't want him in the wrong place. We could seriously use him with breaking enemy lines." Chris lowered his head guiltily, and his siblings started yelling at him for being a lovesick idiot. And then the girls got involved and made a series of "ah's" at his predicament. I rolled my eyes and shrugged my shoulders impatiently.

I cleared my throat to try to get their attention, but they were all too busy screaming and sympathizing with Chris to notice. I tried again, but got as much luck as the first time. I massaged my temples and spotted and metal jar on the table. It was empty. I tossed it at the wall and the answering sound shut up the bellowing crowd quite nicely. "What's your game plan?" I asked angrily, teeth gritted and muscles taunt. Travis looked nervous.

"What?" he asked fearfully, leaning away from me.

"Your game plan," I told him shortly, shaking my head at his idiocy. "What you're doing during the game. Your plan of attack, position, fortifications, defenses. Come on, are you people stupid?" Judging by Travis shameful expression, they were. "Alright, fine. Gather up your allies. We're figuring out how this is going down."

I shoved past them and headed in the direction of the woods. It occurred to me that no one had mentioned anything about where it was happening, but they could assume I'd heard from someone else. Meanwhile, I was going to put together a method to the madness, and for the first time in my life beat Annabeth Chase at her own game.

This was going to be fun.

Hours later, I was outfitted in full Greek battle armor, complete with the sword and shield. I rotated my wrist, sword clutched in my hand, and frowned and the weight distribution and balance in my hand. I was perfectly capable of functioning with a sword other than Riptide, which I was refraining from using until Camp Half-Blood was a speck in the distance; but the difficulty of using unfamiliar sword was how it fit in my hand. It was irritating and frustrating, but I made do.

My shield was Celestial bronze and reinforced. Everyone on the blue team had gotten special armor and weapons, forged by the children of Hephaestus themselves. Although I had wanted to, thanking Jake Mason, the counselor of Cabin Nine, gratitude was counterproductive to the fuming hatred I needed building toward me at Camp.

I had a sword, which was not what Travis wanted me using. He insisted I use a spear, because of course no one would use a weapon they weren't one hundred percent familiar with in their first fight. I just laughed at him and told him I was a different breed. Apparently, his fear for my wrath was greater than his fear of losing, because he relented.

I ran over the plan once again in my head. Demeter would be hanging back to guard the flag, positioned in a tall tree for maximum protection. Cabin Nine would be joining me on the offensive, while Aphrodite would be evenly distributed between my infiltration team and defense. Unfortunately, the unwanted assistance of Hypnos, god of sleep, was utterly and completely pointless, as they only snored around on tree trunks and rocks. Iris had little to no special talents, but the three siblings agreed to help. They, too, would play defense.

Travis had pestered me mercilessly about my offensive strategy, but I just told him I needed to scout out the enemy formations before making any official calls. So, of course, Hermes was sent out to spy. They were already in trees and camouflaged, ready to gather intelligence on the red team and deliver it back to me.

About five of the total population of Cabin Eleven was scouting. The rest was either with me or fortifying our defense even more. I had also been questioned as to why I had so many playing defenses when the object of the game was to capture the red flag. Well, it was actually a grey flag embroidered with an owl, but that was beside the point. My only counter to it was the game was also designed to defend your own flag, and that, in turn, foiled the other team's chances of winning. I only wished I knew which way Annabeth was playing. If she was building up her defense just as much as I was mine, then the small strike force I had assembled would be painfully inadequate. However, if the majority of her force was headed for our flag, my situation was perfect. The anxiety was killing me.

"Why do I have to stay back here while you have all the fun?" Sam grumbled bitterly, arms crossed defiantly over her chest while I crouched down behind a rock and scouted the forefront of Annabeth's men from my hiding place. Concealed in the shrubbery was the rest of my team, who awaited my signal to attack.

I groaned inwardly and yanked her down behind my shelter so no one saw me. "Sam," I hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm only going to say this once, so you better listen. Defense if crucial to the success of this game. I'm not holding you back. I'm just giving you more freedom as to how aggressive you are."

Sam glowered at me darkly and tried to stand. I held her in place. "You gave me a knife." She pointed out shortly, holding up the glowing weapon as proof.

"So?" I demanded in a hush. "You like the knife."

"Not as much as I like the sword." She countered, looking away from me. I rolled my eyes and palmed my forehead in exasperation. "Why can't I use a sword?"

"If you honestly want a sword, Sam, there are extras for when our team's disarmed. You can choose one from there. But I recommend before careful with your decision. You've been using a knife for over a year now. The sword is a more recent skill." Sam's dark glare defeated me.

"Aye, aye, _captain_." I was about to call her on the slur, but she disappeared like the nimble rodent she was. I might have endurance for distance running, but Sam was one hell of a stealthy sprinter. I was confident she'd be hard to catch.

She had been pointing out my fail on appearing a follower. Percy Jackson had pretty much always been the leader, but his position had been forced on him. Therefore, my instant acceptance of my own authority was the opposite of my standard response. Camp knew that, which was why I wasn't worried about discovery. No, my fear was accidentally getting caught in the water and having it become public knowledge who my father was.

Travis had called an informal vote back at the cabin while plans were being formatted. Essentially, he named me the unofficial captain, taking charge of the team behind the scenes while Travis and Connor functioned the figureheads. I had no problem with that either. Kept the spotlight off of me and on the people less likely to figure anything out.

That's when I saw the swishing tail of Chiron trot along the border, a megaphone clutched in his hands. "On the red team, led by Annabeth Chase, are Apollo, Ares, Hades, Tyche, Nike, and Hecate. And on blue, Travis and Connor Stoll leading are Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Demeter, Iris, and Hypnos. Remember, flags must be clearly displayed, a rule which both teams have followed." Chiron glanced over at our proud emblem, clearly debating whether or not the elevation was legal or not. He shook his head and sighed. We were safe. "There is to be no maiming, killing, or critical injuries during the course of this game. Violation of this by deliberate acts of harm is punishable by banishment and/or life sentences." My mouth dropped open. Apparently the war had given the Camp and backbone, because the punishment used to be reduction of dessert privileges. Things had changed. "Now then, the moment you've been waiting for..." Chiron gave dramatic pause for effect. I bunched my legs, waiting and watching, ready to jump into action. Jake waved at me, looking for a signal, but I gave him and terse nod and motioned with my hand that they wait. Swinging in the treetops was Travis, a guy named Andrew, some girl who introduced herself as Regina, Andrew's seriously younger brother Bren, and someone named Cascadia. They were all cloaked by their camouflage and the excellent cover of the trees. When they returned to friendly territory, armor and weapons were waiting for them. But all they had at that moment were the knives provided by Hephaestus. The Celestial bronze was covered by blood and so were the sheaths. Travis looked at me, his brown eyes flashing in excitement, and I motioned that he be ready to head out the minute the couch horn sounded. Travis nodded his understanding and made a series of subtle motions to his siblings, who immediately caught on and prepared to go separate ways. Any minute now, the horn would sound.

I felt my heart race like it hadn't in five years. It wasn't the terror in my veins that came from a fight. That, although it had become an acquired taste, didn't quite make my blood pump like a (somewhat) friendly game of Capture the Flag used to. The muscles bunched, the heart pounded, your head became dizzy with the thrill of the chase and your entire world was focused around those weapons in your hands and your inevitable objective: capture the enemy's flag. Never before had I had such an important role in victory before, but my intention was to make this count, because I wasn't getting something like this ever again. Sure, other Fridays we'd come out to the woods and line up and down the creek for the game, but it wouldn't be this exciting. There were some serious hopes and emotions riding on the outcome of this game. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

That was when I realized someone was missing from the referees. Mr. D was nowhere to be found, which I found interesting and worrisome. Usually, the prospect of watching half-blood beat the living shit out of each other was his idea of a good time. But now, his signature leopard pattern shirt was nowhere to be seen. I pursed my lips in concern. In the very pit of my stomach, I knew something was wrong.

And everyone else did too, I realized. The reason this game was so exciting wasn't because of animosity between the teams or just general excitement on the victory. Everyone knew disaster was close at hand, and they were going to fight like there was no tomorrow.

And I wondered if there ever would be tomorrow.

I forced myself to attention when I heard Chiron start speaking again. "Let the game begin!" The couch horn blew and everyone raced into action. Annabeth wasn't holding back her forces so she could scout, unlike us. She sent forward a wave of men, sloshing across the creek and into our territory. Annabeth was leading them.

Then I got a crazy idea. Annabeth had held Clarisse back because she assumed I'd be playing defense as well as a rookie and she didn't want to lose one of her best fighters. She could just go ahead and keep thinking that. With a very firm nonverbal order, I told Jake and the others to stay put while I led them on.

I burst out from behind the rock, right in front of the charging red plumes.

Swinging my sword like a maniac, I moved people around me, too afraid to get close. But I was careful not to let my inborn talent with the sword show through. I made a mental note to be average with it, even a little sloppy, so people continued to believe my weapon of choice was the spear and I was just expanding my horizons. It worked. I received an unending array of taunts about my stupidity with picking a weaker weapon. I was ignored, mostly, by the invading force.

But Annabeth hadn't anticipated her reception. As soon as the red jumped through the creek, my defense leapt into action, rapidly pushing back in the invading force. I looked around for Annabeth and deduced that she was wearing her invisibly cap, because I couldn't see her. I wondered if that was her scouting. Or if she'd already done her scouting.

It didn't matter though. I was intoxicated with the furious pump of blood through my veins and the knowledge that I might just get the revenge against Annabeth Chase she rightfully deserved after dragging me through a gigantic anthill.

I laughed almost psychotically and I hacked my way through the invading force, lending a hand to the defense capturing and dwindling down their numbers. That was when I saw that Travis and Cascadia had returned, looking triumphant and grinning.

I moved through the force easily, dashing over to group of demigods talking in hushed voices. "They've got it on the damned Poop Pile," Jake swore at Cascadia's words. "But their defense line is thin. All of them were heading for our lines. But Clarisse is there, like Chris said. She's guarding the flag with her brother. Mark, I think. They don't seem particularly concerned though. They've got a few other guards stationed all over the place, ready to help out defending the flag. But they don't need to worry much. That stupid rock is impenetrable."

"Not as much as us," I pointed out darkly, slightly bitter about the situation with that damned hunk of rock. Leave it to Annabeth to select the best area and maximize her success by making it impossible to hit her where it hurt. "That tree is hard to climb, and we've got the nature lovers, remember? At least rock climbing is something we're used to." I was referring to the lava-spouting rock wall, which I had deliberate flunked. It was the only way to assure Cabin Eleven that I was Superman. "Anyway, how's their defense set-up? Is Clarisse on one side, Mark on the other?"

Cascadia shook her head. "They're on the same side, facing the front. I didn't see anyone guarding behind, and we looked pretty carefully." I thought for a moment. Annabeth wasn't a careless personality, but her fatal flaw was hubris. Her pride might have finally gotten the better of her in this. I hoped so and she hadn't created a clever, characteristic rouse to beat us.

"Alright, then we creep up on them. Scout for a few once we're behind, and then attack. I'm talking hailstorm on their heads. Those bastards are gonna pay for that onslaught, I've got news." My team nodded and waited for my signal.

I let Travis lead me through the trees and kept Cascadia back so she could tell the other scouts where to go when they returned. The muffled sounds of war from a ways off echoed in my ears, but our entourage was otherwise unaffected by the battle. There was no one around for miles.

That was when I remembered the Myrmekes.

I stopped dead and motioned that we go around. No one argued, which was a relief. Kind of anticlimactic, but a relief. Not long after we dodged that bullet, an arrow came flying toward our heads. At me! I ducked under it, and it embedded in a tree.

Then the sun was bloated out by skinny projectiles.

"Take cover!" I cried at the blunt-tipped arrows rained down on our heads. We scattered, taking refuge wherever I could find it. Mine was underneath a tree in some sort of small ditch. It wasn't the best protection, but it was the best in sight.

Eventually, the arrows stopped and I tentatively stood. I waited to hit the dirt again, but apparently the danger had passed. So Apollo was keeping watch, were they? Well, they wouldn't catch a few demigods as easily as they would a group.

I resolved to order the others into small teams, but they were nowhere to be found. I heard ecstatic screams from somewhere in the distance, followed by those same individuals shouting insults and curses. I laughed. The Iris cabin had done their job and created the illusion of our flag. This was going pretty well.

I forged ahead, forgetting about the others. They'd meet me by the flag and I'd wait if I had to. Except I didn't have Travis to guide me to the location. It wasn't a big problem, though. Zeus' Fist, AKA the Poop Pile, was pretty hard to miss.

So I wandered. And ran across Clarisse.

Her armor was smeared with dirt and covered with greenery. War paint was smeared across her face, but she wasn't trying to be stealthy. It was just for intimidation.

Again, she carried a sword in her hand. She glanced down at mine and scowled. "Little risky, don't you think?"

"I don't know what you mean." I said quietly, brandishing my sword and swinging it side-to-side cockily. Clarisse chuckled and lifted up her own.

"Using a sword when you're a spear guy. Overconfidence." I smiled at her, the left side of my mouth more prominent than the right so my scar flashed. Clarisse swallowed nervously. Some people weren't easily affected by my deforming mark, but most, with the proper incentive, ran screaming. Even Clarisse's father was unnerved by it. She certainly wasn't immune.

"The way I hear it," I said quietly. "The spear's your weapon too." Clarisse frowned, and nodded.

"I'm practicing. Nearly died back in the War. Lost my spear, you know. But you're brand new. You shouldn't be experimenting yet." She sounded wary, and I decided it was time to fight. "We've got a score to settle, Eric. And I plan to settle it." I smiled.

"There's no settling now, Spearhead," I told her. The nickname was lame, but it got the attitude across nicely. Clarisse's expression darkened. Okay, maybe not so lame. "I won fair and square." Clarisse's temper got the best of her and she charged.

Our swords met in a shower of sparks, and I made my footwork sloppy and unorganized. I deliberately tripped on branches and moved too much, over exaggerating my movements and using some spear techniques with the sword. A low stance for one, which hurt mobility. And I jabbed for a while, swept her weapon aside, incorporated the stuff only long weapons are supposed to do. Clarisse started smiling. She had it in the bag, as far she was concerned.

Then I blocked her stab solidly and yanked the sword out of her hand. I slammed her pommel into her head and she crumpled like a sack of potatoes. I won. Again.

I jogged forward, the rest of my advance on the flag uninterrupted.

I saw my team was already there. I nodded at them, and they motioned questioning with their hands. My response was quick and decisive. When I gave the signal, we'd charge.

Now, it was only Mark guarding, a few others off in the distance. Too far to immediately fight. I looked at Travis, the sprinter of our group, and told him to grab the emblem while we kept the reds away. He nodded, and brief exchanges were muttered before I raised my sword and my head and let out a battle cry.

Mark was dumbfounded as we bore down on top of him. He raised his shield and prepared to charge toward us, but he was overwhelmed by ten sweaty bodies. Travis tried to climb the rock, but he slipped. Jake caught him and I jumped into action. I yanked the flag free and tossed it down below.

Travis was off, flanked by everyone on our team. The defender ran across to offer and hand to, but just before he was across the line, the couch horn blew, signaling the end of the game.

That didn't make any sense. Red hadn't gotten the flag yet, so why...

Chiron jogged out in front. "Counselors," he said fearfully. "Follow me please." My eyes widened and my heart was gripped in a firm vice. The meeting was being called prematurely. Something was horribly wrong.

Travis dropped the flag in his shock, but it didn't matter. The game was over. A new war had begun.

Cabin Eleven was restless. No one moved, or spoke, or said anything. We just lay down and waited for the bad news. It soon came. Travis and Connor crept through the door, faces down-turned. Travis was the first to speak.

"Mr. D is gone, back on Olympus. The gods have called a lockdown. We're cut off from Olympus."

**Those readers of Heroes of Olympus, you know what I'm leading to. It's getting there, fast. I'm going to conclude this part pretty shortly, maybe five to ten chapters left. After that, Heroes of Olympus gets a big role in these books.**

**I'm going inactive for a while after this, guys. No More Death is a standstill, and I need to work on my actual stories, not just fanfiction. I'll come back. I'm just not sure when.**

**I'm sorry. But Mad31lina, you can ask one question pertaining to No More Death or Forgotten Fear. You can ask a series, so you ensure that one is answered, because I won't spoil the plot, but only one will be answered. Those are the rules. **

**Sorry. I really am. But I'm going on hiatus. I hope this chapter was good enough to appease you, because I'm not writing another one or reposting this. Feel free to continue reviewing. I might come back faster.**

**-thein273 **


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

I'm Not Afraid

Three nights after Cabin Eleven received the depressing news that Mr. D had been recalled to Olympus and nobody was ever going to talk to their godly parents ever again, I decided I desperately needed a breath of fresh air.

The Hermes cabin was notoriously light-hearted and easy to take on a bad day, but no one seemed particularly elated. Travis and Connor still pranked people, because if they didn't prank, the end of the world would come, but otherwise, there was nothing new. And the stifling nothingness in which I was stuck while inside that cabin was about to drive me the rest of the way insane.

Before "going to sleep," I stashed a sack of weapons under my pillow and feigned slumber while I listened for everything to stop bustling about and fall asleep. Patience was fundamentally necessary for a man who had spent an obscene amount of time on the streets, so I had no problem flattening myself against that mattress for another ten minutes before I stealthily slipped the sack from underneath the pillow (not at all comfortable with pokey objects hidden beneath, mind you) and slowly worked my way back down. Unfortunately, in order to jump off the bed, I had to move it, so Sam shot up and awake.

"Shh!" I hissed desperately, covering her mouth with my hand and scaring Sam out of her wits. "I'm sneaking out!" I told her quietly, the words coming out between clenched teeth as I glanced around nervously. Sam spit on my hand and I wiped it on my shirt. The little girl looked at me in disgust.

"Away?" she accused angrily, but it was an angry whisper, thank the gods. Curfew was long gone at this point, and no one would let me out of that cabin if they found out what I was doing.

"No," I shook my head. "Fresh air, that's all. I'll be back before morning." Sam looked skeptical, but she flopped back down in bed and punched her pillow, huffing. I rolled my eyes at her and tiptoed to the door, inching it open, and all but sprinting to the lake where I could get a break.

I stared at the peaceful surface, heart pounding from my run. I was panting, and the feeling of my chest heaving and heart wanting to pound through my ribs made me feel strangely content. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose deeply, the salty scent of the sea filling my nostrils. I dropped the sack of weapons on the ground, sliding off my shoulder and down to the earth, where the knives inside clattered loudly.

Suddenly, I felt the atmosphere drop about ten degrees. I shivered, hairs standing on end, and looked around apprehensively. That was when I saw Hera.

She was sitting on a throne of some variety, and I knew she wasn't really there. The mist that bellowed around her ankles made it clear she was still on Olympus. And it was actual water vapor, not the magical kind that made my life such a living hell. Well, The Mist was somehow a part of it, but...

"Hello, Jackson." Hera said calmly, her golden eyes flashing with amusement. I contained my rising anger and made my arms hang complacently at my sides.

"L-Lady Hera," I choked out, watching my body language carefully. I was only enduring this hell so Camp Half-Blood would be safe. I couldn't imagine pissing off the Queen of the Gods was exactly helpful to that.

Hera stared at me thoughtfully, and I tried to puzzle out the reason for her visit. I found out soon enough. "As you know, the gods are hereby forbidden to communicate to demigods." I nodded. "You should know that this will not change your current predicament. I am still watching you, and if you go against our agreement, I will not hesitate to inflict the punishment we've already discussed."

"Our agreement?" I scoffed. "Which one?" Hera's eyebrow quirked.

"Both." was her reply. "If you leave this Camp prematurely, you will leave ruin in your wake. And if you fail to properly conceal your identity, I will ensure that all your friends-sorry, _allies_-feel my wrath." Then she raised the corner of her lip in a patronizing smile. "Oh, and Perseus?"

"Don't call me that." I snapped. "It's Eric now, remember?" Hera waited. "What?" I sighed.

"Acid rain is anything but my style." With that, her illusion burst apart, leaving a peacock feather in its place. I clenched my fist and turned sharply. So much for a respite.

I collapsed onto the ground and buried my head in my hands. I felt that familiar ball in my throat that preceded the tears, but tonight I wouldn't cry. I refused to let the tears fall. I was stronger than that, dammit! I wouldn't let those cursed tears out.

Sometime while I wrestled with myself, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped and turned. Annabeth smiled sympathetically at me and crouched down beside me, pushing the sack of knives over. I didn't say anything. I just glowered at her. "What do you want?" I demanded. "'Cuz I'm not going back to that cabin. Not for a while, anyway. Even assholes need breaks." Annabeth didn't say anything for a moment.

I ignored her and stared at the water. It was so deceptively calm and tranquil. It reflected the moon and the stars, slight ripples distorting the image, but only barely. It gave me a perfect image of my scarred, fragile expression.

That jagged reminder was there on my cheek, as always. It was quite possibly the only physical part of my disguise keeping my true identity secret. My entire face was affected by it, the separated blackened skin sickening as it twisted the skin on my face. Some people assumed the entire left side of my face was paralyzed because of it, but I had perfect motor function, as long as the damned thing wasn't festering.

"Why are you here, Eric?" Annabeth asked suddenly. I didn't answer. "Eric?" she prompted, placing her hand on my shoulder again, but I shrugged it off. I didn't need her sympathy or condolences.

"I'm taking a break." I said impatiently. Annabeth laughed.

"You might want to be careful doing that," she warned. "The Harpies are notoriously merciless."

"So the rumors about resident man-eating monsters are true?" I asked dubiously, inciting another laugh and answering nod from Annabeth. "So why are you out? Or did you follow me?" She shook her head and leaned away from me, looking insulted.

"Of course not," she snapped. "I...seniority has its advantages." She decided cryptically, making me glower at her angrily. Annabeth shook her head. "I've been here for fifteen years, and that's the single longest of anyone else here. I'm also a veteran of the Titan War and counselor of Cabin Six, so I have some liberties others don't have. Nico and Clarisse are the same way, even if they haven't been here as long as me." Annabeth tucked her legs underneath her and sat down next to me. "You don't know mind if I join you, do you?"

I snarled. "Actually, I do. But I doubt you're going to leave, so..." I stood and picked up my sack with a lazy swipe, shouldering the strap and turning my back to Annabeth, heading for the arena.

Before sauntering away, I saw Annabeth tense in alarm. She must have scrambled to her feet and pursued me, because a second later I had an irate daughter of Athena lecturing my ear off. "You do realize the proper etiquette when a person asks if they can join you is to tell them yes?"

I scoffed. "Of course I realize that, Your Highness." I jeered, mocking her with a false bow. "However, I have no desire to put up with you longer than is absolutely necessary, so if you would excuse me..." I turned to walk away again, but Annabeth grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

Consequently, I found myself uncomfortably close to her, so much so that I felt her covered breasts against my chest. Her breath tickled my nose hairs, and I snapped back, wrenching my arm from her grasp. "I would thank you to _not_ grab me." I told her curtly, stepping back.

I didn't understand why Annabeth looked so winded. You'd think I'd hit her in the solar plexus or something. Her blonde hair was down, I realized for the first time. Yeah, I know, real observant of you, Jackson. But I wasn't paying attention to stupid things like the fact her gray tank-top was unnaturally tight against the curves of her rather amusing figure or her golden curls framed her regal face perfectly. Or that her grey eyes were focused on mine with an expression other than complete and utter disgust.

But the disgust was back soon after. "Why are you always so tactless?" she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. I swallowed and put together a quick, even more hurtful response.

"Tactless?" I demanded in the meantime to stall. "Who the hell uses the word tactless?" Annabeth's eyes flashed and she took a step forward, jabbing me in the chest.

"Just because you're too stupid to read a dictionary doesn't mean..."

"A dictionary?" I scoffed. "That's a hoot. I'm dyslexic, you moron. I couldn't read a dictionary even if I wanted to. Not to mention school was never really a big part of my life, so..." The last was true. Actually, both points were true. I had never stepped foot in a school after my banishment from Camp, and that had only been sophomore year. Not to mention, I was constantly off on some quest or something, missing me weeks in the middle of the school year, and while I actually attended the education facilities, I wasn't the highest scoring kid in my class. So yeah, you could I wasn't very well educated.

Annabeth looked taken aback by my reboot and she stopped. She pursed her lips. "You know, uh, the store sells all kinds of books printed in Ancient Greek. If you wanted to take a look, I'm sure..."

"And I have the money to pay for it. Sure." I shook my head. "You know what, princess. Not everyone's as privileged as you, so why don't you just get off my back, huh?" It hurt to treat Annabeth so...tactlessly, but what was I supposed to do? Decency was not part of the deal for me anymore. It was either be a hated man or watch everyone you used to love die. Even though I had cut ties with Camp Half-Blood, that wouldn't lessen the pain when I saw it fall apart.

"Princess?" Annabeth demanded. "Privileged?" she scoffed. "I beg to differ. Every single day of my life has been an uphill struggle." I whirled around on her.

"Oh really?" I countered. "How so?" Annabeth curled up her lip and drew her knife. For a moment, I thought she was going to throw it at me, but then she tossed it at the ground and it embedded itself in the earth.

"My father didn't really appreciate having a half-blood for a daughter. He resented Athena for leaving me with him, tried to offer me back to her. When that didn't work, he married some horrible woman with kids and made my young life miserable. Monsters kept attacking the house, and eventually I got the message and took off. After a while, I ran across Thalia Grace and Luke Castellan. Luke gave me that knife and a promise that I was part of their family. That they would never hurt me." Tears welled in Annabeth's eyes and she spun on her heel away from me.

"I was seven and confused, but when I found Luke and Thalia, I thought everything was going to be alright. And then Grover found us and...We were making it up that hill. But the monsters were right behind us. Thalia told us to go on ahead..." Annabeth's voice caught and I knew that although Thalia was back and alive and safe, it still stung to talk about it. "She said she could handle the monsters. She was the daughter of Zeus. I never figured she would die, but...she was so close to death. Her dad turned her into a pine tree to preserve her spirit. She's back now. The Fleece saved her, but...

"Luke was never the same after Thalia died. He betrayed Olympus. He took on Kronos' spirit. Housed it. But he tried to make amends in the end. It was too late to save him like I had always hoped, but...he killed himself to stop Kronos from reaching full power. And the gods survived. We were rewarded. All the veterans. The heroes. And Percy turned down immortality to give all demigods equal rights. Things were fantastic. And then my seaweed brain had to talk to that meddlesome goddess and his father, and the next thing I knew, I was speaking at his funeral and we were burning his shroud. It seems I'm doomed to lose everyone I fall in love with."

Annabeth looked back up at me. "Everything else resolved itself in the end. But Percy and Luke are never coming back. They're gone. And I have to live with the knowledge that I'm at least partially responsible for their deaths. So no, Eric. I might be privileged, but I'm privileged to pain and guilt. And I am anything but a princess. Princesses don't walk around with permanent scars in their hearts because their prince was brutally murdered."

My eyes were wide. I couldn't figure a decent comeback to that. I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't exponentially make Annabeth feel worse, and trying to comfort her by telling her who I was was absolutely out of the question. So I was left with a single course of action.

I scoffed.

"Why did you feel the need to tell me about your incredibly depressing life?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow and pushing the sack higher up on my arm. Annabeth frowned, like she was thinking, and shrugged.

"Because what you've gone through, Eric, it...it isn't all there is to life. The wounds you've sustained are probably never going to heal, but maybe it's time for you to stop ripping them open farther. Let it go. Whatever is gnawing at you just let it go. Don't be afraid of it." I had started to feign sleep during her incredibly philosophical conclusion, but my head snapped up when she said "Don't be afraid of it."

"I'm not afraid of anything." I told her quickly, and Annabeth smiled weakly.

"Everyone's afraid of something, Eric. You can't go through life without fear. Otherwise, what's the point to courage?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "What?"

"Thanks for the advice, Bodhidarma, but was it really necessary?" Annabeth sighed in hopelessness. "And if everyone's afraid of something, what's your fear?" Annabeth bowed her head and didn't answer.

"I'm not afraid...of much." She added hastily, realizing she almost contradicted herself. I waved my hand in a "go-on" motion and Annabeth swallowed nervously. She took a deep breath and muttered something incomprehensible. I knew what she was saying, of course. But I seriously wanted to hear the meek squeak come from Annabeth.

"Sorry," I said like a true asshole. "Didn't catch that?"

"Spiders," she snapped loudly, covering her mouth and glancing back over at the cabins to make she hadn't woken anybody. When she was confident no one was on their way to check on us, she dropped her hand and sighed. "Alright? It's spiders. Like all my other siblings."

I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked down at her leg. "Like that one?" I asked, pointing at her pajama pants. The answering squeal made my night. Annabeth jumped up and down and desperately swatted her pants leg, looking panicked. I laughed hysterically, and Annabeth punched me across the jaw.

That's Annabeth for you. She'd take a hook punch over a slap any day.

I howled in pain, holding my chin. "Holy Hades, Chase." I roared. "What the hell was that for?" Annabeth glowered at me.

"For making me think there was a spider on my leg." She replied angrily. "And you catch on quick." She noted, referring to my use of the Death god's name in anger. I nodded, still holding my cheek.

"I'm a fast learner." I spat at her, straightening up and wincing in pain. It had already subsided, of course, but I couldn't let Annabeth know that. She'd get suspicious.

"Whatever, Spear Boy. But don't pull crap like that on the other campers. I got used to Percy pranking me, so I don't have a problem. But Malcolm and Christine might not be as forgiving." Annabeth turned around and started walking back to her cabin. "And Eric?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"It's okay to be afraid." With that last piece of Athena wisdom, Annabeth ran off toward her cabin, leaving me speechless and confused.

I sighed and bowed my head, running off toward the beach, sick and tired of avoiding the ocean, and dove in headfirst. Aliases be damned. I needed that reprieve.

As soon as my head was submerged under water, I drew in a deep breath and plunged farther below, kicking my legs and cupping my hands, pushing the water behind me. I usually avoided pushing how far under I could go out of fear that there was a point where I'd be crushed, but tonight was a different matter. I had just had a confusing conversation with an old friend, and now I was ready to let off some steam. However far below sea level that happened to be.

I felt the coolness of the sea against my skin, but of course my clothes were completely dry. I laughed, the water distorting the expression of joy slightly, and started doing barrel rolls under water and stupid tricks just because I felt like it. After so long of being kept from my father's domain, I was ready to laugh a little.

After Poseidon knows how long, I resurfaced. But I deliberately popped up above the water periodically to make sure it wasn't lightening yet. Remembering my promise to Sam to be back in the Hermes cabin before morning, I scooped up my sack of weapons and ran back, perfectly dry.

Little did I know as I inched open the door and crept back inside that my now rogue life was about to take a turn.

**Okay, so sorry for the break. This has been sitting dormant on my computer for a while now, but I didn't dare upload it because the influx of reviews would have me desperate for more and I wouldn't be able to cut my ties again. **

**After the Capture the Flag game and emotional scenes, I'm a little afraid this chapter is dull. But I'm trying to pace myself with this thing. I've got the nasty tendency to jam too much action into a story and the depth and character interaction loses its real impact. So I slow it down using scenes like this. And if you think about, these chapters are crucial to a story. They set the tone for everything because they let the readers get to know the characters. And that's really important for me to do because of the lag-time between the PJO books and this spin-off. Five years is a long time, especially for our beloved characters. **

**I feel the need to explain why I picked Annabeth for this conversation aside from the obvious, "She's Annabeth" you more than likely get. Here's my problem with something Riordan has done to her; she too intellectual. And I don't mean that badly; heck, I'm top of class and I am obsessed with everything history and mythology. But there's hardly anything in his books where Annabeth is being **_**wise**_**. And there is a big, big, big, BIG difference between intellectual and wise. Wise is experiential, but brains are informational. And I refuse to think of Annabeth as a one-sided piece of her mother. She's not just smart, but she's discerning. That is what sets her apart.**

**So there was a little bit of, I believe the accepted name is, Percabeth in this chapter. Frankly, I don't agree with cutesy nicknames for couples. They're annoying and juvenile. So I go with Percy/Annabeth. They truly are a perfect couple and have been since they met. Seriously, how many of you had them pegged the moment Annabeth said, "You drool when you sleep?" (Riordan, ****The Lightning Thief**_**, **_**pg. 64) But for those of you like me who are waiting in anxiety for Mark of Athena to come out for the long awaited reunion between Percy and Annabeth, this is not your story. They will not get over their incredibly trivial differences for quite some time, if ever. You don't know where I'm going with this, so for all you know, one or the other could die a horrible and tragic death, leaving their soulmate in eternal distress and pining for condolences. But I've got news. Neither individual will end up with any other. Those couples are just wrong.**

**However, if you're reading No More Death, I'm zeroing in on the end. The reunion is in sight. Hooray! But seriously, do not read this religiously if you're ready to kill Rick Riordan for releasing an excerpt **_**without**_** the beloved couple included. I don't mind raving complaints, but you have been warned about the whole relationship thing, so screaming at me, even cyber-ly, is not appreciated. **

**As a matter of fact, I don't write romance that well, so expect no romance save for hints in Part 1 and Part 2. The sequel to this, The Siren's Song, will contain way more or the fawned-over couple, but not right now. So do yourself a favor and find another story to read sparsely between chapters of this, okay? Just a piece of advice.**

**Percyjacksonfan16, I am giving you another chance. If you're still reading this, you can ask a question, or multiple ones in order from "I'm going to die without knowing this" to "I guess it would be nice to know." If you have questions, ask them. If not, please tell me so I'll find some other diligent reviewer. Please?**

**I hope I've eased your anxieties for now, Ladies and Gentlemen. Sorry for the hiatus. **


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

I Choose the Sword

The majority of you who are actually reading this probably have never faced down an army single-handedly or taken down a Drakon. If you have, then the words I am about to say to you make perfect sense and otherwise need be left unsaid. As a matter of fact, I suspect you could completely skip over this part of my life and never feel the slightest bit confused for it.

The rest of you; when it comes between choose fast or lose everything, you will probably choose fast.

I know I did.

It all started in the Mess Hall at breakfast two months after my nighttime conversation with Annabeth. Ever since, I'd been walking on eggshells around her and trying desperately to never see or speak with her again. My near-confession by the lake had left me shaken to the bone and jittery as hell. It didn't make matters worse that I couldn't take three steps without some reminder from Hera that I needed to keep my mouth shut.

I flat refused to go anywhere near Cabin two because whenever I did I heard Hera cackling sadistically, taking joy from my pain and turmoil. I knew she hadn't railroaded me back to Camp Half-Blood so she could be sure I wouldn't go back on my word. She'd done it so the gods could watch me on Hephaestus TV and laugh their cold-hearted asses off. And I knew it.

So I did the only thing I could think of to get back at them short of revealing my identity to Camp. I stopped giving them their stupid offerings. When it came time at dinner for the Hermes cabin to walk up to the braziers and scrap off a piece of their meal into the flames, I did not stand up. I remained rooted to where I sat and waited for everyone to return to their seats. It caused heads to turn and eyes to fill with suspicious loathing, but I didn't care. Most of them believed I wasn't participating because my godly parent had failed, repeatedly, to claim me. They probably expected me to join in gladly after I was finally sorted into whatever godsforsaken cabin they put me in.

I, of course, would never be claimed. Poseidon had already called his wildcard when I was twelve and enlisted me to clear his name with his brother, Zeus. And I sure as Tartarus hoped he wouldn't sabotage me by somehow revealing that he was my father again. But then again, we were talking about the Lord of the Seas here. He completely blew off my existence until he had to step up to the plate because he was about to go to war with Zeus.

I began to dedicate every waking moment to practicing religiously with every weapon available to me in the armory. I spent the least amount of time with the sword, only truly practicing with my signature weapon in the cover of darkness when no one could see my true skill with it. Otherwise, I fired off a bow until either my arms were too tired to lift or I was out of arrows. Or I worked, panting and hot, with a spear until my vision blurred and the sweat accumulated from my brow blinded me. I threw javelins until I could hit a penny from fifty yards away. I jabbed and parried with a knife so damned hard it felt like my lungs were going to explode. I loaded and reloaded the gun I'd taken from our attacker outside the casino. I fired shotguns and rifles and assault rifles and generally every projectile weapon I could find.

I tracked the counselor of Cabin Nine, the Hephaestus cabin, down and made him give me careful instruction on how to use the artillery pieces only implemented in Camp in the worst of emergencies. The Battle of the Labyrinth, for instance. And the Titan War.

It took most the two months. By the time I was proficient with everything, I had one week left. One week before Hera decided if Camp Half-Blood would be safe from her unrivaled rage or if it would be razed to the ground. One week before Nico di Angelo took his Stygian iron sword and ran me through with it.

On the last Friday I would have at Camp Half-Blood, just before Capture the Flag, I was outfitting Sam in her armor. She still couldn't figure out how the heavy metal protection worked, and she was constantly trying to take off her helmet, complaining it was uncomfortable. But she wasn't stupid. She got used to it real fast.

Previously, I heard Chiron announce yet another meeting in the Big House after Capture the Flag. He didn't seem nearly as nervous this time as he had the last time he declared it, so I figured it wasn't nearly as serious. But he did send Nico into the woods to find something. What, I didn't know. Probably some son of Hades thing.

"No," I told Sam, who had been incorrectly putting on her armor as usual. I shook my head and pointed at her leg, crouched down to fasten my greaves onto my legs. Sam watched me and did as I showed her. Afterwards, she figured out where the bracers went and tightened them around her forearms, slapping their insides and grunting in satisfaction.

"Thanks," she smiled, and then glanced around apprehensively. I figured out she needed to talk and shot an Ares camper a dark glare. She had thin brown hair and didn't do anything more than grunt when I silently ordered her away. Hardly anyone did much more than nod in my direction anymore, and most of them didn't even do that.

"What's up, Sam?" I asked seriously, trying to stay nonchalant and pretending to double check her armor. She groaned when I tightened a strap and sighed.

"It's just...you keep looking at the barrier, Per-Eric," she quickly corrected herself when I deliberately tugged on her armor to remind her I wanted to be called by my middle name permanently. "And...I have to wonder. Are you still going to run?" I stood up and rolled my shoulders, bending my arms at the elbows, and generally checked my mobility. Sam mirrored me, only she was staggered a little bit because it would have seemed conspicuous if she did what I did at the exact same time.

I wanted to be completely serious and solemn with her, but we were already catching suspicious glares from the other campers and I knew our time was almost up. So I decided it was best to tell her like I was ripping off a Band-Aid. "Hera made another deal with me." I told her. Sam's eyes watered, and I strongly suspected she already knew what was coming. "She told me I had to stay another two months at Camp without being discovered, and then, if I had any hesitation running at that point, she'd reconsider giving me the out she did."

Sam cursed vehemently in Ancient Greek, but luckily she hissed out her insults through her teeth so no one heard her calling Hera about fifty different creative names. "Hey," I warned, glancing up at the sky nervously. The last thing I needed was for Hera to take offense to something Sam said and blast Camp off the map _despite_ all my hard work. Sam groaned.

"I know," she muttered. "It's just...I like this place. I don't want to leave." I closed my eyes and tensed, Sam already starting forward with the rest of red team. We were working with Athena this time.

My young charge-no, I told myself, studying the girl in front of me. She wasn't my charge anymore. She wasn't my responsibility. She could handle herself, as she had proven time and time again. She wasn't the little girl I had always seen with the short, shaggy black hair and innocent green eyes. She'd seen too much of the streets for her eyes to stay sweet and ignorant.

She let her hair grow out and now it was even and neat and up in a braid, tightly done down her neck. The tiny wisps of hair that had escaped her entrapment hung over her clean, joyful face, right now tainted with the expression of apprehension and fear. Her eyes reflected back to me, lighter in their shade, so much lighter than my green, like a light glowing behind her eyes. When she laughed, that light flared up and illuminated her entire face. I hadn't seen her so happy since I'd met her. I hadn't seen her as joyful as she was when she played basketball with Travis and Connor and sneaked in between their legs to throw a perfect basket. Camp Half-Blood had given her a home, dammit, and I was not going to take that away from her.

I had considered letting her come with before, while I was mulling over my options while at Camp Half-Blood. But now, the very concept made me disgusted with myself. How could I think of taking her, still young and learning, from a place where she had a chance into the streets where she would be constantly fending off attack after attack? And gods forbid something should happen to me while I was with her, where would she go? What would she do? She was too young to handle the horrors of homelessness alone. Especially now that she was a known demigod and a trained demigod. No, Sam had to stay. For her own good.

I expected another screaming over my leaving her again. I figured Sam would pitch a fit and yell at me and attack me with her sword, but she didn't. She just stared at me, face expressionless, until she bowed her head in unison with a sigh.

I knew Camp Half-Blood was Sam's home now. And she finally had too.

"Good luck out there." She told me solemnly, turning and jogged off toward the red team. I winced, because there was an irritable edge to her voice. I wondered if Sam resented me because of who I was, or because of the fact I hadn't put up enough of a fight for my sake as I did for her. But it didn't matter.

This was my last Capture the Flag game. And I was going to make it count.

As I ran after Sam, I noticed something flash in the woods. Seconds later, the sounds of someone crashing through the trees filled my ears, and everyone tensed up instantly. Weapons were drawn, bows loaded, and shields raised.

Five seconds of silence. Ten. Fifteen. The common place ADHD rampant throughout the camp was beginning to act up, less experienced demigods shifting uncomfortably, losing their focus. Annabeth hissed at them to stay attentive, but after three minutes of just dead nothing, even she was looking unsure of herself.

Chiron trotted to the front of the assembled demigods; bow in hand, even if it was hanging at his side. More nothing. Time was ticking by, dragging on and on and on endlessly like it was trailing through syrup. And still the cause for the Camp's unease did not show itself. There were no cracking tree branches or cries of desperation coming from the dense thicket. It was like nothing had become the mainstay in those damned woods.

The woods were never perfectly silent. There was always something, somewhere, making noise. Growling. Snarling. Threatening the campers. But today, it was like all the monster lurking in those woods had taken the day off. There was just _nothing_.

"At ease," Clarisse called, and the campers obeyed instantly, nervous laughter ringing out at their supposed paranoid reaction to a few sounds coming from the woods. But I held myself in preparation. So did Annabeth and Chiron, who now had his bow notched and ready to fire, string pulled back and all. But we were it. No one was paying attention.

It would be a perfect time to attack.

Everyone was armed but no one was paying attention. Most were discussing strategy with each other over the plan for Capture the Flag. Not a single person was ready to defend themselves. Except for the holdouts. Annabeth crouched down lower, and the hairs on the back on my neck seemed determined to reach the sky. Chiron made no move. I fought to listen.

But no matter how hard I strained my ears, the chitchat was louder than the woods. After the five minutes plus of complete silence, the noise was deafening. Damn it, I couldn't hear anything except those Aphrodite girls gossiping over who liked who. "Shut up!" I snapped at them finally, tense from their constant babbling. They looked taken aback and indignant, scoffing at me before taking their conversation elsewhere.

But it still made no difference. I was at the rear of the crowd, the far rear, actually, because everyone had already migrated forward. I had at least twenty feet between me and the rest of civilization. I wanted to scream at the campers for being so dismissive, but I couldn't. Because my voice would only add to the clamor. But if they didn't shut up soon, I had a feeling their socialization was going to be their undoing.

It had now been the better of twenty minutes of inactivity. My impatient brain was screaming at me to abandon the stupid paranoia and just move. My legs were beginning to cramp from being crouched for so long. But that feeling-that edginess that was always described as the calm before the storm-it was everywhere. All around me. Thick and unlivable. This anxiety was going to kill me.

Then I realized Nico still hadn't resurfaced from the woods. I didn't figure on him being gone this long. He was supposed to be captaining the opposing team because he shadow-traveled to and away from the enemy flag before anyone knew what he was doing. So where was he?

Suddenly, Nico's lack of presence and the paranoid feeling added up to "It's connected."

"Help!" someone screamed. And I recognized the voice. The crashing through the forest sound returned, the desperate cries being bellowed from somewhere not that far in the woods. "Hellhounds!" Suddenly, Nico appeared, his sheath empty and hands sword-less. His clothes were cut up and bloody, and he was covered in dirt like he'd just been in a fight for his life.

For some stupid and alarming reason, everyone chose that moment to clear an aisle for him. That's when Sam decided to run toward me. "Sam, no!" I screamed at her, but she was already too far away from everyone else when the hellhounds came bounding out of the woods. Nico ran through the already developed walkway, leading the hounds of hell straight toward Sam.

For most of you; when it comes to choose fast or lose everything, you will choose fast. I know I did.

Over fifty monstrosities; like moving, embodied shadows, came charging toward Sam. She whirled around, stunned and frozen. She dropped her sword.

"SAM!" I screamed, my hand stretched out to my friend. My only friend. Young or not, I could always count on Sam to lighten the day. And now her light was about to be snuffed out from a river of shadow.

Sam was the only thing I had left in my life. Everything I was still living for. She might not be my daughter, but she was as damned close as it came. And I would gladly take Tartarus again if I lost her.

So when Clarisse, too far away to act immediately, tossed me a spear and shouted, "Eric, catch!" I either took the weapon flying at me, the one that I still didn't know enough about to save Sam from any army of monsters, or picked up Sam's fallen sword.

I chose the sword.

As I skidded across the ground, "Sam!" bellowing from my lips, I stretched out my hand. Sam timed it perfectly, jumping in the air as I slid past her, surging to my feet without a second's hesitation. The spear fell forgotten on the ground long before I ever started toward Sam.

Without a moment's hesitation or thought, I brought up that sword with the speed I had been born with. The black teeth of a hellhound glanced off the blade, and I dodged its brother's lunge Matrix style. Spinning around on my knees and coming up to a standing position, sword cleaving, I disintegrated about seven dogs in less than ten seconds.

"Eric!" I heard Sam scream, followed by her panicked yelp when she rolled sideways from a claw. I had taken her weapon, and now she had nothing. "Help!" I wanted to yell at her to run, but I knew better at that point. I was surrounded by the shadowy river of hellhounds and Sam was barely staying on the perimeter. The damned beasts were gunning straight after her.

"Sam!" I screamed at her. "Whatever you do, don't take on more than three at once! Do you hear me! No more than three!" I slashed to my side and sliced through the monster's collarbone. It burst into golden dust, and the cloud grew from various other points throughout the horde. The other campers had finally pitched in.

I listened for Sam's shouted affirmative, but I heard nothing. Once again, terror gripped my heart and I thought she'd been overwhelmed. "Sam!" Shoving the hellhounds out of my way while flinging the sword in an "x" in front of me, I made my way to the perimeter and where I had last heard my young ally.

It was a slow advancement, but I was so angry at the attack that those fucking hellhounds didn't stand a chance. I must have filled Tartarus to brim with all my kills by the time I reached Sam. She was lying on the ground, bleeding.

"Sam!" Tears welled in my eyes and I was at her side in an instance. My mind flashed back two months before when I thought that Cyclops had gotten her. I wasn't going to need a son of Apollo to heal her this time, I swore to myself.

Not that Will could have healed her. I saw him being carried out of the fighting on a stretcher.

Frantically, I pushed up her shirt to get a better look at her wound, but Sam's hand stayed mine. She might my eyes seriously, her green flashing. "Pervert," she joked, but there was no strain to her voice. I frowned and Sam sat up. Only her shirt was stained with blood. "Someone else got injured and was carried off. I played possum." I scoffed in disbelief, her method of survival, although unorthodox, genius. The hellhounds just wanted us dead. They didn't care about eating the bodies.

"Stay down and get a weapon." I instructed her curtly, and Sam did as she was told, hunkering down and running toward a fallen spear. I cursed. She hated the spear, and with good reason. But I wasn't about to complain. Any weapon at this point was better than nothing.

The hellhounds behaved like an ant swarm, using their superior numbers to overpower campers into submission. I must have saved at least five from near-death just by hacking apart a few unsuspecting dogs. I received a lot of "thank yous", all of which I blew off in preference to killing the monsters who almost killed Sam.

The fighting raged for hours until, finally, the sun set and the hellhounds decided the fight wasn't worth losing. They faded into the shadows, one disappearing just before I cut it in half with my sword.

The campers didn't move for several moments. I noticed an absurd number of injured parties, but there didn't appear to be casualties, remarkably enough. Otherwise, everyone was thoroughly shaken up and confused. Nico already had a congregation around him demanding answers, which he seemed hesitant to give for some unknown reason.

Then Connor and Travis broke the uneasiness with a stupid comment, "Happy Halloween!" I rolled my eyes and chuckled weakly, finding myself grateful for the idiocy of the declaration. Everyone stared at the near-identical brothers for several moments, and then the camp erupted in hysterical laughter, probably out of relief that they had survived.

The ironic part of it would be I'd be making my departure on Halloween night. Well, actually the only ironic part would be the swarm of very real monsters that attacked me the second I stepped foot outside of Camp. Shuddering at the thought of how many big bad ghoulies I would have to battle, I drifted through the lines of blubbering girls and boasting guys to where I saw Sam, leaning against a tree trunk.

She was staring at the throng of friends clapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves on a job well done. "What's eating at you?" I asked her, and then winced. She had a bite mark on her arm. That might be received as bad pun.

She didn't catch it. "Did you have that?" she asked quietly, continuously staring at the gathering half-bloods, arm-in-arm while they made their way toward the campfire for a late sing-a-long.

I frowned. "Have what?"

"Receptions like that." She looked over at me, and I sunk to the ground, down the tree. "Big huge blowout "great jobs" and people who loved you and were grateful that you were alive." Her eyes were unreadable, but it finally occurred to me what she was talking about. "Did you come back from that war a hero?" A single tear rolled down her cheek and I stood.

"Sam," I told her, wrapping her in my arms and letting her cry silently on my shoulder. "You have that too, now. You've got a family. And you've had me for a while. Forget about your stepdad. He doesn't even know where you-" Sam pulled away and cut me off.

"No," she snapped. "That's not what I mean. Did you have that life before Hera took it away from you?" My eyes widened and I shook my head, barely comprehending what her problem was.

"I guess, but-" Sam slashed her hand through the air to cut me off and turned her back to me, arms crossed over her chest.

"You gave that up just for-just for these _half-bloods_? After everything you've taught me about 'Don't play the hero' and 'Heroes don't get happy endings. It's better to be unknown and alive than dead and famous?'" I couldn't answer her. She whirled back around on me, her eyes brimming with tears. "I always thought your life sucked and that was why you left. I always thought there wasn't anything keeping you here and Hera kicked you out because you didn't have the guts to do it yourself. I always wanted to believe the gods were being nice to you all this time. I never wanted to believe that my real father could be-that my father could be such an asshole!"

"Sam!" I cried, trying to grab her and calm her down, but she wiggled out of my grasp before I could get a decent hold on her.

"And don't even try to feed me that garbage about 'my dad could be a minor god and didn't have anything to do with the decision of the council.' You know as well as I do that whoever he is, my father isn't some D-list unknown god who nobody understands or cares about. Because he isn't! My scent is _way_ too powerful for that. It's one of the Olympians. One of the sick and twisted gods who banished you! And you expect to stay here with a bunch of their ignorant, naive kids who don't understand that you lost _everything_ because Hera was in a bad mood? You think I'm going to stay here after this?"

"It beats living on the run!" I snapped desperately, interjected in that small pause during Sam's tirade. Her voice went up several octaves and I was afraid others could hear our argument.

"Does it?" she demanded. "At least when we were running together we didn't have to hide and pretend we didn't know things when we do! At least when we were running we didn't have to give a damn about 'who's listening right now' or 'does anyone know about us' or whether or not you can save me from a bunch of charging hellhounds! Frankly, _Percy_, I liked the streets more than I like this place! A lot more!"

Sam concluded her argument, hands at her sides, stark white from her iron grip on the air. She was breathing heavily, and all I could was glance around nervously, paranoid she had been overheard. But no one was paying any attention to us and we appeared to be the only stragglers by the woods. Everyone else had already begun singing.

"See?" Sam hissed quietly, looking at me pointedly. "Even after I pointed this out to you you're watching them like they're the plague. Come on, Percy! Let's get out of here! No one's looking. We can run right now and..."

Sam might have had her breaking moment, but in that second I shattered like glass. I took a step forward and grabbed her shoulders tightly. Sam looked at me in horror and tried to fight her way out of my grasp like she always could, but she wasn't having any success this time. I was too angry to recognize the cold terror spreading across her face. "Don't you get it?" The question came out as a hushed whisper. "This is your home now, Sam. It was mine once, but not anymore. Because I've moved on. It's time you did the same." Sam shook her head at me, mouth slightly aghast. "Hera and the gods are assholes, Sam. They've always been jerks. And yeah, maybe some of the campers here don't quite realize how bad they really are. But they're better than the Titans. They're better than the Torturer. They're better than just about any primordial being or predecessor who ever had Earth under their command. That's the only reason I'm not marching to Olympus right now and razing it to the ground. That's the only reason I'm not massing an assault of estranged, forgotten demigods and leading an invasion on my hometown. Because if I didn't believe that with absolute certainty, I'm pretty sure either I'd be dead or Olympus wouldn't be a problem anymore.

"Don't you get it?" I repeated. "Camp Half-Blood is the only good thing about the gods. And as long as you're not leading them to war, you get _normal_ attention. You're not treated like a Special Ed or idiot here. You're just one of the gang. So stop complaining about _my_ fate, Sam, because dammit, you've still got a life to live, even if I don't!"

I swallowed and stood up, averting my eyes. I refused to look over at the campfire, because I could already hear the excitement and relief. The fire was high and bright yellow, indicating extreme happiness. I decided I wasn't going over there and spoiling the mood.

"Percy," Sam said tentatively.

"It's Eric, now, Sam. You need to remember that." I looked over at her and sighed, deliberately softening the look in my eyes. Sam stared at me for a moment, tilting her head to the side and pursing her lips.

"They just left you down in Tartarus, didn't they?" she asked quietly, but the anger from before was gone from her tone. I thought about how to answer her and finally let out a long exhale.

"Honestly, Sam, I'm not sure what the answer to that one is. They might have been able to break me out, but I doubt it. Tartarus is like a black hole. Get too close and you'll never escape." The moment the memories threatened to hit, I pushed them back down and straightened my back, breathing deeply. I wouldn't let them get the best of me again. I didn't live by the hand of fear.

Sam nodded. "When you were-" she paused, as if she too was thinking of what to say. "When you were down there, did you ever think you were going to get out?" I pressed my palm against a tree and felt the bark imprint into my skin and I rested my forehead against it as well. I didn't answer her. Eventually, Sam just walked away, the awkwardness between us nearly unlivable.

I realized that I was exhausted, both from the fight and my argument with Sam. I didn't want to go back to the Hermes cabin, and something told me to avoid the water. So I jogged over to the Big House, seeing Sam shut Cabin Eleven behind her.

I run around the strawberries and underneath the basketball hoop on my way to the large blue house with the lights turned on. I remembered Chiron's announcement about wanting to call a meeting with the counselors after Capture the Flag. Well, Capture the Flag hadn't happened, so I figured the meeting was going to happen anyway.

I inched stealthily toward the door, curiosity winning over my desire to remain unsuspected. Pressing my ear against the door as softly as I could, I shut my eyes and listened closely. "...where in Virginia, according to reports." Chiron sighed, clearly concluding whatever speech he'd been given. I waited for someone; one of the lesser intellects in the room like Drew or the Stoll brothers, to recap everything he had just said, but sadly, no one said a word. Finally:

"Then it's obvious." Annabeth said calmly, cutting through the silence. "We need a quest."

**There it is ladies and gentlemen. Like, way late in the book, but the chapters on this thing are short and I had a lot of background to go through before I even touch on the real adventure aspect to this entire thing.**

**What I don't know is whether or not I should carry the quest on a little into the second part or end it on the concluding chapter of this story. Opinions?**

**I realize this chapter kind of veers off on a tangent, but I was getting sick of writing short chapters and the battle only ended at four pages, even with the added tension I had for like ten paragraphs beforehand. Sorry if that was annoying for you read.**

**Predictions on the up-incoming chapter, which will go into serious detail over the quest and everything else? I'm not changing my plan with your guys' suggestions, but it's just fun to make you guess. And besides, I give you prompts for reviews in this little black part at the bottom of the page, you know, the part most of you don't read, the ones who do read it review more. So, ha! This is my learned trick. And it works!**

**Okay, Empty Thoughts, you get to ask me questions. I'll only answer one, but you ask more than that in order of importance to you. I'm going to try not to spoil the story for you, so be careful what you ask. So far, I haven't had anyone asking questions like "How's it going to end" even though I was expecting that. So, congrats! I guess. Does that sound big-headed!**

**I seriously love you guys, though. Your reviews make me feel all powerful, and the anonymity makes positive feedback feel superb. I mean, do any of you run across the "It's really good for your age" garbage the teachers and adults feed you? It's like I can't get anyone to honestly critique my work! It's infuriating.**

**Next chapter is pretty close to the end, because I can't write quests. I suck at coming up with ideas for them, and I hate doing rehashes. If you guys have any ideas for conflict after the next chapter, review or PM me or something, because I need them. I have a couple ideas, but otherwise, it's like my novel all over again.**

**Arg! **


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

I Leave Prematurely

I tensed against the door, heartbeat picking up at the mention of a quest.

I pursed my lips. Something told me that, once again, I was destined to be going on this particular outing, but Hera's deal echoed through my mind and my feet remained rooted to the spot. "You will stay here for two months..." I was so close. Not even a week's time before it was sayonara Camp Half-Blood for good, but I could still smell freedom wafting in toward me.

I closed my eyes, weighing my choices. Meanwhile, the counselors were still talking urgently. Clarisse currently had the floor and was making her usual blunt points. "Anyone does a quest now; they'll be dead inside of a day." I heard the table screech against the floor and figured it was only a reasonable assumption Clarisse had kicked her feet up on the Ping-Pong table turned meeting center.

"Gee, Clarisse," scoffed Lou Ellen sarcastically. I remembered her from when I first got back to Camp Half-Blood. She was the counselor for Hecate's cabin. "We can always count on you for sugar-coating things, now can't we?"

I imagined Clarisse shrugging in response.

"If anyone's doing a quest," Nico interjected; his voice solemn. "It's going to be me." Immediately, an outcry erupted in my eavesdropping ear as the other sixteen counselors (yes, I counted) each contributed their own reason against Nico's departure.

"You leave all the time anyway!" supplied a voice I couldn't recognize.

"Yeah, give one of us a shot!" provided another.

"Hey, I deserve to cream some smelly-ass monster for once." That one was a male voice, so the assumption that it was Clarisse couldn't be accurate. Probably the Nike counselor, whose name I wasn't sure about.

"Lay off, punk." That had been Clarisse contribution.

"Everyone knows Hermes is better at stealth!" Travis called out indignantly, clearly miffed about being overlooked.

"Yeah, and stealing shit!" Again, I had no idea whose profanity that was.

"Well..." Travis trailed off, no hurt evident in his voice. You can't really insult someone for being a thief when they're proud about it.

"Logically..." Annabeth tried to cut in, but the clamor had already risen to a point where she would no longer be listened to. A clang and string of profanities later, the entire Big House was virtually trembling with the ruckus from inside.

I thought about the argument inside and tried to pick out operative words that might tell me what exactly this quest was for. So far, the only "clue" I had gotten was Travis' insistence on stealth, which probably was nothing more than him taking a jab at the glory of returning alive and victorious from a quest. Unless things had changed drastically since my "death," questing was a huge honor and repaid with a celebration in your name or names. Traditionally names, seeming it was extremely rare for anyone to set off on their own.

However, judging by the way everything was beginning to sound, this quest was not meant for more than one party. As soon as that consideration flashed across my mind, the temptation to volunteer was nearly overwhelming. I could clear so much distance between Camp Half-Blood and me that by the time anyone realized I had been lying, it would be too late to stop or delay me. It was perfect. And the nearby Albany safe house was stocked to bursting with everything I could possibly want for on the run. It was a perfect chance to escape.

But too soon.

I chewed my lower lip. Maybe, if I acted like I was really disinterested in the quest and was merely there for the ambrosia, I could hear enough about it to figure if it was worth the trouble or not. My legs and arms were beginning to clench from being motionless at the door too long, and the ADHD was roaring in my ears "Do something!" So, without a second's further hesitation, I stepped back, drew in a deep breath, and opened the door.

I said nothing as I walked around the Ping-Pong table, Nico di Angelo flashing me a warning look as I passed him and shoved his chair closer into the table. He grunted and tried to punch me, but I dodged and laughed at him. Chiron was watching me cautiously, making me wonder if my eavesdropping had really been unnoticed. "Eric," he said with an uncharacteristic coolness to his tone. "What are you doing here?"

With a subtle snap of my fingers, I created a believable bite mark on my arm and showed it to him. Chiron frowned and nodded toward Will, who had already whipped out the nectar and motioned for me to come over. Going back around the table and snatching the nectar from Will's hand, I looked around at the counselors, shrugging. "Well, don't mind me. Carry on," I rolled my eyes and hissed when I poured the nectar on the wound. I wasn't thrilled about wasting the godly drink, but I did swallow some of it and the desired rejuvenation from it almost made me laugh.

No one said anything until I'd been leaning against the wall for a good seven minutes, making the wound appear to heal painstakingly slow. Then Annabeth, looking impatient, spoke up. "It's not like he really talks to anyone." She pointed out, and I shot her a mocking thank you. "And besides, no one here looks overly thrilled about going on a quest." She leaned forward, knitting her fingers together and staring pointedly at each person sitting at the table.

That was when the guy I'd heard earlier with the attitude (definitely Nike, judging by the wicked daggers resting on the table in front of him) threw back his chair as he stood suddenly. "Oh, and I suppose that's a slur, now isn't it, Ms. I'm-All-That-Athena-Child. You're just too _good_ to go on a life-threatening quest, now aren't you? After all, the world so desperately needs your intellect and your manicured nails!"

I winced and thankfully no one saw. Just as I expected, the blatant insult had Annabeth on her feet in less than a second, knife drawn and glinting in the fluorescent lighting. "I'll have you know that I have already participated in two authorized quests, one out of necessity, and led the defense of Manhattan during the Titan War! And don't even get me started over Mount Tam, because quest or no, I did a hell of a lot more than break a nail there!" I suppressed a smile at her outburst, proud despite the fact I wasn't supposed to give a damn. "Maybe _you're _the one who feels too self-important to volunteer, Jacobs!"

"Oh really?" Jacobs demanded incredulously. "I don't see you jumping up and down yelling 'Pick me! Pick me!'" I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at the idiot. Annabeth's eyes flashed warningly, eyelids narrowing into virtual slits as she favored first Jacobs, and then everyone else in that room. With my exception of course.

"Don't you get it?" she asked quietly, her voice level and pleading. "Camp Half-Blood hasn't contended with a threat of this magnitude in five years. We've been caught at exactly the wrong time. Olympus still hasn't completely recovered from the Titan War, and Camp hasn't dealt with quests this dangerous or life-threatening in too long to jump into action at a moment's notice. Whoever goes on this quest is sure to face worse than death. It's a suicide mission." Annabeth looked up at table at Chiron, who bowed his head and sighed.

"Don't you think you've exaggerating a bit, Annabeth?" he asked, but there was no conviction in his voice.

"No, Chiron, I don't. As a matter of fact, I think I might be _under_ exaggerating. According to pre-existing reports, the monsters have already reached a force of two thousand and are rapidly growing in size." Annabeth redirected her attention to the entire table. "I'm not arguing the necessity of this quest, just its expression. This isn't a nice quiet outing to the city. This makes my quest with Percy and Grover after the Master Lightning Bolt look easy. Anyone who volunteers for this has a death wish."

She sat back down slowly, leaving the room in silence. Several minutes passed, in which time, no one said a word. Finally, Travis spoke up. "So... Where does this leave us?" he looked around at his friends. "What do we do now?"

No one spoke. Not a single hand slowly crept into the air. Not a soul moved. No one met the eyes of their friends. No one wanted to admit that they weren't willing to be the hero this time. Silence reigned in the Big House, and no one knew how to break it. Nearly every person around that Ping-Pong table had fought in the Titan War. They understood loss better than most adults. They had proven themselves to be heroes repeatedly and had the scars to prove it. But not a single one had lost everything. Not a single one was willing to throw their lives away without the comfort of friends. No one in that room was ready to give it up so easily.

No one here wanted to die. Except me.

"I'll do it." I said quietly. And for that moment, I forgot about Hera and the Torturer. I forgot about my time table and the antidote needed exactly in two weeks. I forgot about the remaining six days I needed in order to appease the Goddess of Marriage into sparing Camp Half-Blood. I forgot about the hell I had endured on my quests when I was younger and the fact that I wanted nothing more than to be free of any of all entrapments to my previous life. I forgot that I was supposed to be Eric, the inconsiderate recluse jackass void of any and all forms of compassion and valor.

And for the span of that careless, fleeting moment, I ceased being the facade and the man on the run. For that moment, I was Percy Jackson again, selfless hero and loving friend.

The silence endured after my rude interruption. The only change was that instead of everyone focusing on their shoes or their hands, they were now focusing on me. I felt countless eyes bore into me, waiting for the witty follow-up that was sure to come. Anticipating the characteristic snort and insult that had been associated with Eric. But it didn't come; because little did they know I had momentarily morphed into my alter-ego. Percy Jackson, who meant virtually everything he said. Percy Jackson, the first to jump into the fray. Percy Jackson, savior and friend. Percy Jackson, the man who represented everything Eric had come to hate and shun.

And in the back of my mind, I felt reason attempt to take over. Eric was trying to take back his mind and to force the very dead and very stupid Percy Jackson back into his tiny little hole, where he had been supposed to stay. But Percy Jackson, although recently lacking much of the stamina and strength of his counterpart, resisted, shaking off the shackles of his fear once more and standing tall despite the crushing responsibility.

Finally, a loud throat clearing drew all eyes, including mine, away from the volunteer. Chiron trotted nervously in the front, watching me intently. "Excuse me?" he said politely. "I'm sure I heard you wrong. I could have sworn you said..."

"I'll do it." I repeated, resolve strengthening. "I'll go on this quest thing. Whatever. I'll do it."

Chiron shook his head, frowning like his ears weren't working. "Eric, I...you... I doubt you understand the implications of what you just said. You volunteered to..."

"Get the hell out of Camp Half-Blood for a bit. Yeah, I know exactly what I volunteered for." Chiron blinked and shook his head again.

"It's significantly more complicated than that, child. There is an..."

"Army in Virginia." I finished for him again, deliberately putting my usual attitude and curtness into the delivery. Chiron appeared to be seriously irked by my conclusions to his sentences. I smiled. "I heard a couple words from outside." I told him, crossing my arms and smiling.

"You mean you were eavesdropping." Annabeth translated accusingly. I waved aside her comment.

"Tomato, to-mah-to," I told her. **(A/N if anyone knows how to actually write that on a computer, I am all ears. I hope I conveyed it clearly enough. If not, it's a pronunciation thing. Sorry for interrupting.)** "Look, the fact is you don't have any energetic volunteers, and I need a breath of fresh air. It's a win-win."

Annabeth laughed dryly, not waiting for Chiron to begin his usually diplomatic response. "Hardly," she chuckled, turning her chair around to study me. She rested her elbows against her knees and folded her arms, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Not only is there an army in Virginia, Eric, but you must have missed the rather important foreword to that declaration." I raised an eyebrow and waited. Actually, I had, but I decided to let Annabeth say it and then connect the dots once I had gathered enough information. "The army is rivaling a force two-thousand strong, and if the nature spirits and satyrs are anything to go by, it's going in size every day. I'm afraid whatever prowess you possess in the physical department won't help you here."

I shrugged. "You do realize I was surviving on the streets for years dodging cops and gangs on top of the big bad smelly monsters for which the Greek myths are so notorious?" Annabeth's eyes widened in grudging respect. "I might not be the stealthiest person here, Chase, but I'm the only one willing to run your little errand for you. So what's the verdict? Am I staying or leaving."

I leaned against Will's chair and studied each person in the room, ending with Chiron. The centaur was studying me with something I didn't recognize, and Will was futilely trying to smack my hand away from his seat. Everyone else seemed too stunned to speak. Finally, Chiron interrupted the silence. "I have no further reservations on this quest." He said calmly. "However,"

"Here it goes," I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

"I expect regular and frequent reports. At least every month if not more. And you are not to leave these grounds until tomorrow morning." That got me.

"Why the hell not?" I demanded, Eric coming back in full force.

"Because our oracle will not be arriving until tomorrow morning, and however unorthodox this quest might be, it requires a prophecy." I bit my back my alarm at "our oracle will not be arriving until tomorrow morning." The last thing I heard, the oracle was a mummy held up in the attic, and for some reason the concept that Chiron would be shipping her back and forth did not sit well with me.

I said nothing about it, however, planning to interrogate someone else later on so that I wouldn't reveal my prior knowledge regarding the state of the old oracle. Or current oracle, whichever the case was. Actually, I was doubtful that a successful transfer of Delphi's spirit had occurred recently. The dream I'd had about Hades cursing the oracle still burned fresh in my mind, and I had seen the effects of an unsuccessful take. May Castellan was testament enough to that.

I met the delusional mother of Luke when I was sixteen, accompanied by Nico, and still had nightmares about it. For starters, she was completely and totally convinced every boy that knocked on her front door was her runaway son. She never quite got the fact that he _ran away_, so she spent a lot of her time preparing his lunch, which grew moldy in piles of sandwiches and pitchers of Kool-Aid. On her windowsill, she had stuffed renditions of monsters staring out to her front yard, and they all looked just as hungry for demigod flesh as the real things. And worst of all, she went into these strange fits where she spewed green smoke and started talking in a frantic, ancient voice about the fate of her son.

It hadn't been until Luke's sacrifice on Mount Olympus that I understood what she meant. May and Hermes had always known where Luke's road would lead him, and May was too far gone to warn him. The Ancient Laws forbid Hermes from intervening on Luke's behalf. Something good had come from Luke's death, though. His sacrifice had been the catalyst that set a lot of things in motion, starting with the god's vow to claim all children, minor and otherwise, by the time they turned thirteen.

"Eric?" I was jolted back to the present by Travis' flailing hand in front of my front. I blinked twice and leaned away, swatting his hand aside angrily. "Yikes," The son of Hermes threw up his hands in surrender, pushing himself off the table and descending back into his La-Z-Boy chair. "You zoned out on us, man."

I bit back a curse and forced myself to remain irate. "Yeah, well, I was thinking." It was about the lamest thing I could come up with and deserved a very rude "Duh" in response, but apparently Annabeth Chase figured it was better to probe.

"Oh really?" she asked in feigned curiosity, leaning back in her seat, crossing her legs and knitting her fingers together while tying up the package with an innocent eyelash batting. Combined, the actions made her somehow provocative and sexy. My reaction to that was to either kiss her passionately or throttle her until she turned blue.

Whoa, I thought, where did that come from? Alright, sure I had faint feelings left over from when I was younger and crushing on her, but Annabeth was in no way a romantic interest of mine. As a matter of fact, romance had become a forgotten entangle before Anne/Emily stepped in and shattered what tatters of my heart there were left. Now any feelings I had toward a woman, primal or otherwise, remained barely a fleeting consideration.

However, that did little to explain why I found myself feeling heady with something I didn't recognize. Or why my chest felt compressed and throbbed dully. I resisted the urge to massage my breast and wince. "What _exactly_ were you thinking about, Eric?" Annabeth smiled innocently, and my eyes wandered south of her neckline. Feeling disgusted with myself, I yanked my gaze back up to her eyes before she could notice the straying concentration.

I chuckled dryly and reached behind me, where a chair was luckily sitting. If there hadn't been one, the attitude would have been lost in fits of hysterical and mocking laughter from the room. Pulling it underneath me, I sat down and folded my arms, studying Annabeth thoughtfully. "Oh, this, that, the fact my inner thoughts are none of your business..."

I heard a very distinctive growl leave the corner of her mouth and Annabeth's face contorted in suppressed anger at being foiled. "Well, I suggest you remain more alert, considering it is _your_ ass on the line here."

"Annabeth!" Chiron chided reproachfully, shock very evident in his voice. I figured Annabeth cussed about as frequently around him as I used to around my significantly etiquette inclined mother. It made sense, of course. Chiron had always been like a father to her.

Wow, my ADHD was bad today.

"Honestly, Chiron, there isn't a single person in this room who has not used far worse in a far less appropriate context. Relax," Annabeth looked over her shoulder while she was assuring the centaur, and promptly redirected her attention toward me after she was done. "As for you, I wouldn't cry an oxygen atom if you died on this quest, but I strongly suspect you'd be bleeding a lot more than that. So if I was you; who I most certainly am not and will never share any similarities to, I would listen very closely to what Chiron has to say and not interrupt him with smart-aleck retorts and clever comebacks. However, considering the fact you seem to find it difficult to say anything non-offensive and snarky, it occurs to me you might find that task difficult to the point of impossible. In that case, the monsters will cut out your heart and eat it over a side of your intestines."

Annabeth had killed practically every pinch of gunpowder I had and stolen all my ammo, leaving me speechless and impressed. I nodded my head despite myself and said, "Blonde jokes aren't universal, apparently."

That got her.

"Eric," Chiron said quietly. "Annabeth, if you two are _quite_ through with your battle of wits, I would like to continue?" Annabeth turned her chair back around so that her back was to me and nodded respectfully to Chiron. "Thank you," he told her. "And Eric?" I looked up from mid-yawn. "Can you put your crassness to rest for a few minutes?"

"How long is a few minutes?"

"Eric!" Chiron warned, and I waved my hand in the carry-on gesture, shaking my head free of nonexistent sleep. "Finally," The centaur sighed like he'd just had a nice warm cup of coffee after a day out in the cold temperatures of wintertime Alaska. In front of him, he picked up a vanilla folder I hadn't seen before and handed it to me. "Now then, according to our most recent update from the nature spirits around the area, the army was spotted somewhere in the forest west of Brodnax, Virginia. That's..."

"Just down the interstate from Pittsburg." I finished for him, opening up the folder and feeling like a detective off a crime show. The first thing I saw was a very green satellite picture of the quaint town of Brodnax, an entire dissection of the town on the bottom. It had the population, minority percentages, and number of men to woman in the city. As well as a crime rate and a thousand other things I didn't understand. I frowned. "This looks thorough enough for an undercover spy to have excess the necessary info. Why do I get the feeling this quest doesn't just entail scouting?"

Chiron sighed. "That's in order for you to gather information. There is evidence of mortal connections in that town, and locating those individuals could be a huge advantage when it comes to actually scouting the advisory." I studied the picture carefully and shook my head, leaning back in my seat. "You're reconsidering." Chiron observed unsurprised.

I threw my head back and laughed. "No," I told him. "I don't volunteer for something and then take back my word. I'm just tired." As if on cue, an unavoidable yawn hit me and I covered my mouth, rubbing my eyes.

Chiron watched me carefully for a moment, and I wasn't sure if he was deciding whether or not to torment me or just trying to figure me out. All I could pray if it was the latter was that he didn't succeed. "I have a question for you, Eric."

I stretched in my seat and rolled my neck. "That's nice to know." I told him, standing. "Can I leave? 'Cuz if I'm not taking off tonight, I do plan on getting some sleep."

Chiron nodded. "Yes, yes, of course," I nodded, not bothering to excuse myself further or say thank you, and started toward the door, vanilla folder in hand. As I curled my fingers around the handle, I felt a strong sense of Dèja vu from the first night I'd spent back at Camp Half-Blood. "But before you go, I would like to ask; why haven't you ever used the sword before?"

I stopped dead in my tracks and whipped around. "What?"

Chiron narrowed his eyes at my reaction. "Today, with the attack, Clarisse offered you her spear. You didn't take it in favor of the sword." Carefully phrasing my words, I leaned against the door. "My question is why have you never demonstrated your affinity for the sword before?"

"What makes you think the sword's my best weapon?" I asked him. "Honestly, I didn't know about the spear. If I had, I would have taken it." I stared pointedly at everyone in the room, but sadly, no eyes redirected themselves. They were all fixated on me, staring through my lie like it didn't exist. They knew the truth now, and no amount of bullshitting and suave retorts were going to make them forget it. "Can I go now?" I asked shortly, feeling the atmosphere grow heavier by the second. I resisted the urge to tug at my shirt collar, air coming too little. I needed room to breathe and run. And, if I was lucky enough to escape sight, swim.

"You're a phenomenal swordsman, Eric." Chiron complimented me, but something told me it was more accusatory. "As a matter of fact, I haven't had a student as adept with the sword as you in five years. It's refreshing." Chiron smiled, but I knew it was just a well-disguised and diplomatic sneer. "Perhaps you should reconsider your weapon of choice."

"I'll see you in the morning." I said quickly, not bothering to ask permission to leave again. I'd just held up by more demands and questions on my swordsmanship. And gods forbid one of them asked me where I learned how to fight. The answer would be a dead giveaway.

Swinging the door closed behind me, I sprinted toward the Hermes cabin, not daring to risk being seen headed for the lake or beach. I pumped my arms furiously at my sides, breaths coming out short and rapid as I headed for Cabin Eleven. Once I skidded to a stop in front of the door, I found my hands were shaking so furiously I could hardly force myself to turn the knob and step inside.

Everyone perked their heads up and watched me enter. "Where were you?" they asked. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" "What's in your hand?" "Have you always been able to use a sword that well?" "You were awesome."

I didn't answer them. All I wanted to do was cover my ears, climb up my bunk, and go to sleep. But I couldn't show the weakness. Camp was like a pack of wolves that way. If I let them know they were getting to me, I'd be dead meat. Instead, I walked to my bunk, eyes darting around the room apprehensively, and stopped at Sam's bunk. She stared at me with those light green eyes, silently interrogating me. When her eyes drifted to the vanilla folder in my hand, I held it out to her. She took it from me and opened it, raising her eyebrows at the image in the front. "I leave tomorrow morning." I told her.

Sam's eyes snapped up as I climbed the ladder to my bed and didn't even bother taking off my shoes or changing clothes. I was trembling too badly for that. No, instead I lay in bed, feeling cold and lifeless, remembering the Torturer's taunts in my mind.

Because Camp Half-Blood had figured out the first part of my secret. If I wasn't damned careful tomorrow morning, they could figure out the rest.

_By then you'll be mine._

**That was an incredibly fun chapter to write. It was ominous and a kick. Anyone know who the oracle is, because Percy took off before he could find out?**

**I keep forgetting to tell you guys; in this story, Annabeth doesn't know about his Curse of Achilles. I couldn't let her find out, because it would pave a road to his real identity too fast. Sadly, I think a lot of you were counting on the sword bit from last chapter to cut open his disguise, and I have to apologize for misleading you. But as you've read, it definitely poses a problem for poor, secretive Eric.**

**He's not so mysterious anymore.**

**Next chapter is the prophecy. If anyone thinks they can come up with one, PM me and I'll tell you select pieces of information. If not, be prepared for an immensely crappy foretelling. I can't write the damned things. They always come out more like a poem than a snippet of the future. **

**In my No More Death story, I received an anonymous request to make it "funnier." I have to tell you guys, if you want funny, you're going to have to send me prompts. I don't write funny very well, and I'm coming up blank for any amusing short stories. And if you want hilarity in this thing aside from the battles of wit between Percy and Annabeth, you're going to need to get me serious help. This is my fallout.**

**Humor is my Achilles Heel in writing. **

**My stories are coming up less and less, in case you haven't noticed. That's because I'm past my writer's block and am merely finishing these stories because I don't want to leave you guys hanging. I'm not going on hiatus like before, but these aren't being kicked out very fast. Maybe every couple of weeks. Less when school starts. Severely sorry. **

**-thein273**


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Rachel's Favorite Color is Apparently Green

I didn't sleep that night.

For hours, all I could do was lie there complacently with my hands resting on my chest and tears hovering in my eyelashes. I wouldn't sniffle or close my eyes, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let those gods awful tears fall. Soon, the effort had clenched my fists and pulled my muscle taut, but I didn't care. All the convulsing and shaking in the world wouldn't faze me. I was on a mission to remain the emotionless son of bitch everyone thought me to be, and I would be damned all over again if I let that carefully, meticulously, _tediously_ maintained facade fall. No, first I would walk down into the depths of Tartarus and the waiting arms of the Torturer before I ever let a single soul know who I was.

Percy Jackson was dead, godsdammit. D-E-A-D, the sooner Camp fucking Half-Blood realized that, the better.

I turned over in bed and punched the pillow into shape, but it didn't help me sleep. The only thing it changed was that I was no longer staring at the bland ceiling but rather the slobbery, unsettling image of a gaping daughter of Hermes with a very, very red mouth. I returned to my previous position and my borderline self-destructive thoughts.

Of course, after I had gotten the necessary information and delivered it to Camp Half-Blood (because of course I couldn't just _forget about the whole thing after I was gone_) I was history. After the required documents or details had been given to Chiron, or at least orally addressed, I was a smoke trail to Mexico. Or Canada. No, Mexico. Too many communications with Canada. I'd be found in a millisecond.

It was so painfully simple for me to just vanish off the face of the Earth again. After all, no one even had a last name to go on, and there was no documented evidence of an Eric anywhere in the US. Especially in the foster as I had so adeptly convinced them I was a member of. There wasn't a soul left alive-save for maybe Sam-that stood a chance of finding me after I had left. No paper trails, no bank transactions, no IDs or Security Number. No records. To the rest of the world, I simply did not exist.

So it was perfect. Just perfect. I could finish this little dirty job in time for supper and just..._poof_. I might have to pull out my supplies from the Albany safe house, but what was the big deal? Sure, I'd be spending what was left of my traumatized life wondering _what if?_ but that was hardly a slap on the wrist. I was squeaky clean. So why did every muscle in my body rebel against the idea of me leaving camp? Before, when I was sixteen, the summer hangout was my life, but now it was just a passing thought and a numb regret from the past. No, not even regret. Just a _huh_. So there was no problem with me leaving forever and always, never to step foot in New York City again to completely take out the unlikely chance of a repeat accident where I was miraculously led to Camp Half-Blood by a horde or frothy-mouthed monsters all intent on my rotisserie arm.

I couldn't shake the feeling that the Fates had something to do with the improbable situation. Seriously, what were the chances that a horde of monsters was going to push me up Half-Blood Hill, the very place I had spent my entire life avoiding? And not to mention Hera's involvement in the real reason for my proximity to Camp Half-Blood. I remembered the mischievous grins and glinting eyes on her face, almost like she knew something I didn't. And although that was a given, something also told me it had a large part to do with me. Another one of Hera's brilliant, helpful plans. Something else to watch out for.

And then again, I also found myself wondering if her plan was already in action and I was unknowingly playing right into her hands.

It gave me some solace knowing I had thrown Hera a curveball this time. She hadn't expected me to volunteer for another quest, now had she? I chuckled at the thought, a smile playing with the corners of my lips when I realized how speechless Hera had to be right now. Staring at her little seeing glass or whatever the hell she used to watch me like a hawk completely dumbfounded with her mouth hanging open. The mental image improved my mood slightly.

But it sagged immediately afterwards. I couldn't help but replay the events of that damned meeting in my head over and over again. There was an oracle, and after further reflection I realized it was a _living_ oracle who lived outside of camp and came here to help out. And tomorrow, no-I thought, glancing at the glowing watch face of Riley Letter-today, she would arrive back at Camp and prophesize whatever bleak future was spread before me.

_12:01_. That was what the watch read, fastened to the Asian arm of Riley as it hung limply over the side of her bed. She snored loudly, and her bunk partner below hissed at her to be quiet, but Riley didn't wake up. She was out cold, her dark curly hair spread over her pillow messily. I stared at her, studying her features in an effort to stop my depressing, ominous thoughts. It didn't work.

Time dragged on so slowly that I began to think I was trapped in another one of Kronos' time wraps, but I knew time was ticking by just as it always was. My perception was just skewed a bit. Or a lot. Because every number that changed on Riley's digital watch felt like an eternity.

Scenarios raced through my head even though I fought with them. I couldn't afford to assume what was coming down the pike. I had survived as long and as well as I have because I could take things as they came. Right now, in this moment, what I had to deal with. Not what I would have to face in three days. Not three months. Certainly not three years. There was no room for such fantasies while one ran from a constant, never-ending array of enemies day-in and day-out.

Eventually, my insomnia forced my ADHD into action and I quickly climbed down from my bed and started packing for the quest. Plain, solid color shirts with no hints of Camp Half-Blood, tough jeans, food to last for five days (whatever other supplies I needed I would pick up at the Albany safe house), ambrosia and nectar. I didn't plan on a long, lingering quest and anything else I would need in my numbered years as a runaway could be picked up from convenience stores and discount racks outside clothing shops. I was set for whatever amount of short time my young life still had on it.

Unfortunately, my packing only took about thirty minutes, even with the hushed shuffling through everyone's stuff for what I needed. So when I was done with my compiling of necessities, I still had five hours to kill.

Sighing dejectedly and collapsing to the fall, I smacked my forehead to my palm repeatedly and wished I could just roll over and die. It would be better than sitting on the wooden panels under my butt until the beams of dawn finally shown through the windows in the front of the cabin.

Then I saw something resting atop the camouflage backpack underneath Sam's bed. It was a book, and when I looked at the dusty cover, I saw the title. "Daughter of the World." It was my mother's book-the same one I had lost during the fight with the monster horde. I wasn't sure who was responsible for seeing it delivered back to me, but it brought a faint smile to my face. Leaning against a dresser and opening up the book, I struggled to interpret the mixed lettering. I squinted intently at the first page and it took me at least an hour to read the first paragraph.

_Peter called after his still-young daughter, Abigail, who was playfully splashing around in the surf, wearing her flower-print swimsuit. "Abby!" he called, his gruff yet gentle voice muffled by the crashing waves onto the coast. His graying brown hair receded on the top of his head, the stubble on his chin dotted with white. His muddled eyes, a brown mess of different, unremarkable hues, flashed in the light of the approaching storm. _

_Abigail called out as a wave swept underneath her and tried to carry her out to sea, but her father wrapped his arms around her middle and lifted her up before the ocean could gain enough momentum. She let out a watery giggle as he heaved her up onto his frail shoulders and jogged back to the family car, parked a quarter mile inland. The blue Chevy sheltered Peter's young second wife, Teresa, whose stomach bulged with a growing child. He frowned worriedly at his recent wife, knowing that although she was ten years younger than he was, miscarriage, and a fatal miscarriage, was still a large possibility._

_Teresa was a pretty thirty year old woman with gold hair, cut in the childish bob. Her blue eyes were intense and glinting with life and happiness, which only grew brighter when she felt her biological child kick in her uterus. Although she loved Abigail dearly, Peter couldn't blame his wife for wanting a child of her own to raise and care for. His only concern was that her love for her own kin would overshadow her love for his daughter._

_Ever since Abigail's mother died in a tragic car accident a year ago, Peter had been panicking. Just days before he received the hospital call, his own doctor had called him in with the results of his MRI scan. A tumor was expanding in his brain, and although it was still small and relatively unnoticeable, very soon it would reach a critical size and cause his death. The doctor told him that surgery could be done to remove the tumor before that happened, but the second Peter saw the bill; he knew it was out of his financial range. At that time, he already had Teresa caring as a volunteered nanny for his younger Abigail and knew that she would make the perfect mother. So after he managed to function after a month of debilitated grieving from his wife's death, he asked the younger woman out. It wasn't long before she agreed to his offer of marriage and became the legal stepmother to his precious little girl._

I stared at the page, unable to continue to read. I heard Riley's watch beep and saw that it was only minutes for six am. Sighing and tucking my mother's book in my own cloth sack, I started to wonder what had caused her to write such a depressing novel. I strongly suspected it had something to do with my death. Adverse feelings directed inwardly and outwardly at Hera spread through me when I realized just how deep my betrayal had stung. Perhaps even thrusting her into the throes of depression. I shook my head and buried the paperback underneath the clothing already inside, pushing the unhelpful emotions aside.

Someone's alarm clock blared and everyone shot up like a bullet. It was too late for me to climb back up, so I just leaned against the ladder and pressed my finger to my lips down at Sam, who rubbed her eyes and stretched. Travis walked up to me and tilted his head sideways. "Why you up?" he asked, words dampened by a bad-timed yawn.

"Saw her watch a couple minutes ago." I lied, kicking the cloth sack underneath the bed and looking at him expressionlessly. Travis scowled like he didn't believe me, but just shook his head and started searching everyone with his eyes for whatever unknown reason.

I heard someone hiss from behind me and turned. Sam held up the vanilla folder from last night and I cringed reflexively. Her eyes showed no fear or anger. "Do you need this?" she asked. There was no exhaustion or grogginess in her tone. It was as crisp and clear as it was in the middle of the day.

I shook my head, but took it anyway. "Did you read it?" I said, scanning my assignment papers again briefly. Not that I had to, of course. The pages were branded into my memory from when I first read them last night. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam nod wordlessly. "So..." I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Pretty cool, huh?" I winced at how patronizing that sounded. Sam's face darkened considerably.

"Oh, yes," she said sarcastically, voice dripping with anger and betrayal. "Facing an entire army of bloodthirsty monsters organized by an unknown and seemingly divine force single-handedly with nothing but a satellite map of a tiny little town in Virginia and some crappy vague prophecy sounds unendingly awesome." Sam swung her legs over the opposite end of her bed so that her back was to me and bounced a couple times before pushing herself onto the ground and starting to change shirts and pants.

I swallowed and said the first thing that came to mind. "Watch your language."

Sam tensed and whirled around on me. I recoiled just as much as I used to back when Annabeth was the girl I was constantly pissing off. That seemed to be my talent in life; aggravating the wrong people. I looked tentatively at Sam, who had one tennis shoe in hand and the other untied on her foot. I gulped, waiting for the explosion, but she said nothing. Instead, she marched over to another bed and finished tying her shoes, starting a deliberate conversation with Connor while she did so.

So I had successfully alienated everyone in my life, including the little girl who had previously been my only ally. I was beginning to think that my investment in the jackass act was unnecessary energy being wasted and I'd have better results if I just acted like myself. Shaking my head and mentally calling myself a string of colorful names, I pretended to busy myself with getting dressed.

Just then, the door opened. I turned as bright morning light washed over the crowded cabin and gave Annabeth a natural spotlight in the doorway. It actually looked like one of those overly dramatic romance scenes where supposedly the guy realizes he's in love with the girl-bright backdrop of white illumination, windblown bouncing hair, and angelic expression. Except Annabeth's hair had been thrown into a sloppy ponytail, which she was still putting up in a hair tie, and her clothes were disheveled and carelessly thrown on. But she still looked magnificent.

Holy shit, Aphrodite, I thought, recognizing the goddess' unique signature. Get the hell out of my love life. I'm not interested.

"Eric," Annabeth's musical voice called to me, and I wanted to scream. Musical? Really, Aphrodite? Can you get anymore cliché? "Ra-the oracle is here. She's waiting in her cave." Annabeth's breathtaking stormy eyes searched for me and I wanted nothing more than to jump up and ran away. The farther from Annabeth Chase I was, the safer we both would be. Aphrodite was bored.

I swung around a bedpost and leaned against it, sighing. I picked up the sack from underneath the bed and threw it on my shoulder. While I was following Annabeth out the door, I tried to flash Sam an apologetic look (because I was an asshole with a conscience) but she deliberately avoided my gaze.

"So who's the oracle?" I asked conversationally, immediately mentally smacking myself for sounding so..._nice_.

Annabeth's cautious look was testament to Aphrodite's pesky meddling. _Isn't this illegal?_ I thought, remembering the Ancient Laws and how they prohibited direct divine interference. "You wouldn't know her by sight, but her name should sound familiar." I waited. Annabeth just rolled her eyes. "And here I was thinking you _didn't_ have very bad ADHD. You're as impatient as the rest of us." That was all she said for the rest of the trip. We walked to a very rural and far-off place in Camp, miles away from the cabins and up a hill from the woods. It was a cave with a velvet drape concealing the inside.

Annabeth pushed it open and smiled. "Hey, Rachel. Remember that new camper I told you about?" My eyes widened into saucers when I saw the red hair and paint stained clothes of the ever recognizable Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who smiled at me expressively when she turned from unpacking her suitcase.

She walked forward, clearing several feet with just a couple strides, and held out her hand. "Very nice to meet you," she said nicely, and when I didn't accept the gesture of friendliness, she deliberately grabbed my hand, hanging limply at my side, and shook it. "You're Eric, right?"

I found my throat suddenly and unexplainably dry. "I thought there was supposed to be an Oracle of Delphi here." I blurted stupidly, ignoring the obvious sign.

Rachel smiled politely and nodded at Annabeth. "Can't get a prophecy if there are add-ons. Sorry, Annabeth." The daughter of Athena just shrugged and wished me (or Rachel) luck before she let the tapestry fall back into place and jogged back down the hill.

Rachel turned and sat on her plush bed, pointing at another seat in front of her. Slowly, I lowered myself into it, finding it difficult to breathe. "I am the oracle. Have been for about five or six years at this point." She smiled and crossed her legs. "So, you're going after an entire _army_? Talk about brave. I'm going to explain how this works the best that I can and you need to listen, okay? I don't know how long we have before the prophecy hits." I just nodded and Rachel frowned. "You're not much of a conversationalist, now are you? Whatever. Anyway, you'll probably have to ask me a question like 'What is my destiny' or 'Am I going to die in the near future?' and there'll be green smoke and a lot of smell and the temperature will drop and I'll start talking in a really ancient voice that kind of overlaps." Rachel was going a hundred miles an hour, just like I remembered her doing from before. I guessed the finishing school she went to hadn't killed all of her rebelliousness. Actually, it seemed like none of it had been defeated. "I don't remember my prophecies, and I certainly don't know what they mean, so you're going to have to just deal with whatever Delphi tells you, okay?" I nodded again. "Alright then, so, shoot."

Rachel stretched and looked at me expectantly. I swallowed about seven times before I finally found the words to speak. I carefully avoided the "my destiny" line and instead said, "What is the destiny of this quest?" Rachel looked vaguely impressed with my wording before she straightened like a block of wood and shot to her feet.

Like she had warned me, green smoke started coming out of her mouth and nose and eyes, spreading around the room and enveloping me in a layer of ozone. I coughed, and then Rachel started speaking in that ancient monotone that sounded nothing like her.

"_You will embark despite the goddess' threat  
and in retribution, be forced to forget.  
The secrets you seek lie hidden below  
Thwart the attempts of hope's ancient foe  
But fail in the purpose you set to fulfill  
The daughter of lies succeeds in her kill."_

Rachel collapsed onto her bed, and I just sat there staring at her, trying to piece together the prophecy in my mind. But I knew one thing from that damned ominous foretelling.

I was going to die.

**Sorry for the lengthy break, guys. There's another one coming. Very sorry again.**

**For those readers of No More Death, I'm very close to cancelling it. If I don't get twenty reviews by the end of the month, No More Death is coming offline. I've left it where I'm leaving it and it goes nowhere else.**

**Spread the word if you have to. I'm not bluffing.**


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

Annabeth Asks Too Many Questions (Like Any Daughter of Athena Worth her Cent)

While Rachel snored peacefully on her bedspread, I stood over her completely dumbfounded and stupefied. The redheaded rebel looked just like she had when she was sixteen; same baggy T-shirt and paint-stained jeans so befitting of an artist. Her red hair seemed to have grown out a bit though; it's frizzy mess a little better maintained and longer, hitting about mid-back on her now. There were pink ribbons on her nails, too; the symbol for Breast Cancer. Leave it to Rachel Elizabeth Dare to join that cause.

My mind wandered back to the green mist and voice that had somehow emanated from my old friend, spilling out her mouth and eyes and even ears until it completely swallowed the room. When had she become an Oracle? She said something about going through it five years ago, which meant it had to be shortly after my "death," if not during or immediately following. I wondered if I hadn't listened to Hera or had at least accepted her two days window to "put my affairs in order" if I could've stopped her from selling herself to Apollo. But I doubted it. Rachel had always done her own thing no matter the consequences.

_You will embark despite the goddess' threat_. Thank you, Captain Obvious. I wouldn't be talking to you if I wasn't going to ignore Hera and leave Camp prematurely. That was absolutely no help at all.

_And in retribution, be forced to forget_. That might not be as stupid as the first line. As a matter of fact, it made me a little uneasy. What would Hera make me forget? My quest so camp wouldn't know what to do? A certain part of it that was crucial to my survival? Or, gods forbid, she sent me back to when I was sixteen at twenty-one so I had no clue what I was doing except going back to the place I had called home my entire life? If she did that, there would be no way for me to protect Camp Half-Blood. I wouldn't have a clue what I was defending it from.

I shuddered and focused on the third line, understanding the relevance of it to my actual mission. _The secrets you seek lie hidden below_. That sounded like we were talking about some underground bunker with vital information on the target and contractor of this huge army. If that was the case and I could somehow get Hermes or someone to deliver a whole bunch of blueprints and plans to Camp Half-Blood before Hera's alleged vengeance fell on me, there wouldn't be a thing she could do to stop them. And if I went a step further and anonymously warned them that Hera was going to kill them...

_Thwart the attempts of hope's ancient foe_. The fourth line scared me shitless. If one let paranoia into the mix, one could almost believe that "hope's ancient foe" was The Torturer looking to terrorize the surface world. But that was ridiculous. The Ancient Fear had tried multiple times to escape from his prison over the eons he'd been trapped and sealed away, but never once had he needed to be _thwarted_. It could be anything else, really.

But ancient and hope and foe really only added up to one thing.

But it could be Phobos. Ares' godly son. I crossed him one time back when I was fifteen and helping Clarisse out of a jam. He could want payback. I could stop him from helping the army or taking revenge on his half-sister. Yeah, that had to be it. No way was the Torturer even part of this.

_The fail in the purpose you set to fulfill._ I hated stuff like that. When I was twelve, the damned prophecy told me I wasn't going to save my mother and because of it she was almost permanently trapped in the Underworld with the selfish Hades and all his twisted little minions. If it wasn't for the fact that the Lord of the Dead actually had a heart, I never would have seen her again. And that stupid prophecy was beginning to shape up like another prerequisite to some Great and obnoxious Prophecy foretelling Armageddon or something stupid. Which was wholly and completely ridiculous. I hadn't heard one lick about any Great Prophecy starting to shape up.

_The daughter of lies succeeds in her kill._

That last line brought a hopeful smile to my face and a small flicker of hope. Anne McCartney was an assassin and my ex fiance. If she wanted payback, she was going to get it. And maybe, just maybe, I'd luck out enough to run across her. _Threaten a corpse, Hera. I dare you_. And if I was really fast, I might be able to take her out as my last not-so-noble act. Tie up some loose ends before Death finally dropped by for a visit.

Rachel groaned and started to sit up, startling me out of my thoughts. I looked down at her, and she gave me a tired grin. "I guess it went well?" she asked with a yawn, shaking her head to clear it.

Looking her square in the eye with such conviction anyone would have thought the prophecy gave me good news, I nodded.

Rachel laughed. "That's a nice change from the depressing crap I usually ramble off in. Good luck on your quest, Eric. Although I think the Fates might be on your side this time out."

"Yes," I agreed. "They most certainly are."

With an unusual spring in my step, I jogged off toward Half-Blood Hill, an ear-to-ear smile splitting my face. I couldn't help but feel hopeful and a little optimistic. There was a very good chance I was going to die soon, and that was one thing I had been anxiously anticipating every single day of my life for the past four years.

Most people are terrified of the prospect of dying, and because of it they spend most if not all of their lives creating various ways of cheating it. Life support, vaccines, cures, treatments, chemotherapy, even complicated machines hooked up to the brain to enable people to live and communicate. But our lives are built upon the finality in death, and it scares us all shitless.

I am in no such way handicapped. My entire life has been piloted by the idea of selflessness and heroism, which usually results in premature and painful death. But I always had the thought in the mind of my mind; "I don't want to die today." And because of it, I had survived some pretty impossible situations and even come out relatively unscathed.

That all changed when Hera banished me.

I stopped caring if I lived or died. I fought the never-ending stream of monsters trying to kill me just because I wasn't going to let some bloodthirsty soulless creature of Tartarus take my life and even put some excessive effort in survival, but every day I lost a little more will to live. And after The Torturer, my only motivation for survival was avoiding that godsforsaken place.

But now I had a legitimate chance of not making it back in one piece. Anne, as I strongly suspected was the daughter of lies from the prophecy, was going to track me down and finish the job she started in front of the Justice of the Peace when I was eighteen. And I wasn't entirely sure I was going to fight her.

Oh, once I was confident certain death was upon me, I'd drive her favorite strangely shaped knife through her sternum and smile when it punctured her charcoal heart, but I wasn't going to keep her from racking up one last hit for her total. No, I'd stand there complacently and wait until I knew it was coming, and using the skill given to me through divine blood and ten years of diligent practice would end her life like she had ended so many others. And I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Hell, I'd _gain_ sleep.

I was so invested in my equally morbid and cheerful thoughts that I didn't realize I was walking up Half-Blood Hill to a patiently waiting Annabeth. By the time I came to attention and saw the daughter of Athena on the crest, throwing pieces of beef jerky into the air for Peleus, it was too late to alter my course. I was committed.

I cursed under my breath and shrugged the pack farther up my shoulder, jogging the rest of the way up the hill with the intention of completely ignoring the daughter of Athena. But before I even reached the barrier, Annabeth was in front of me, tossing the last shred of dried meat to Peleus and crossing her arms.

"What did the prophecy tell you?" she demanded, grey eyes flashing in the sunlight. A slight breeze ran by, lifting up her ponytail and making it snap to the left side of her face. Her blue shirt was pulled taunt as well, revealing one side of her toned and alluring curvature. I swallowed, my eyes almost wandering lower than her face, and I thought about a dozen insults to the goddess of love.

"None of your damned business." I told her impatiently, trying to maneuver around her. But Annabeth's tanned fingers darted up and pressed against my chest, stopping me. I looked at her in exasperation and saw something flicker across her face.

The next thing I knew, Annabeth's face was millimeters away from mine and closing in. I felt her breath brush against my face and my eyes closed in preparation. I felt the breeze pick up, suddenly freezing. And I stumbled back, repulsed.

"What the Hades?" I demanded of the heavens, which rumbled so quietly it wasn't surprising Annabeth didn't pick up on it.

She bristled. "I don't know what you're talking about." She said diplomatically, making me sneer.

"Sure you don't." I suppressed the wince trying to break out across my face. It wasn't Annabeth's fault. Aphrodite had had an obsession with Annabeth and I since we were fourteen, and now, apparently, she had decided having another tragic romance was just what the world needed.

_Hera will kill her._ I thought angrily. _She'll kill Annabeth and mom and everyone here. And besides, when did you ever actually want to date her? Annabeth was always a good friend. Just a friend. Remember? _

I remembered alright. I remembered constantly having to restrain myself from doing something incredibly impulsive and presumptuous every time I was around her. I remembered feeling emotionally distraught whenever the threat of war put Annabeth in danger. I remembered how I had nearly lost my mind when she fell off that cliff when we were fourteen and how I wanted to turn back the clock when she took that stupid knife for me. I remembered how everything in the world seemed to fall away in those last moments of the war when the world seemed to be ending and the absolute only person on my mind was Annabeth Chase. I remembered falling madly and irrevocably in love with her when I was fourteen and dreaming about her. I remembered never wanting to live without her.

But I had. For five years I had. Even after I had come to the startling revelation that Annabeth had been, for lack a better term, my soul mate. I had lived on, even thrived without Camp Half-Blood or Annabeth Chase. And whatever supposed love I had had for her had been fleeting and was gone within a week. It was lust, not love. Love was supposed to last forever and didn't need a meddlesome goddess to keep it alive.

I didn't love her.

Annabeth seemed to come back to her senses then, stopping me again before I crossed the barrier. "What did the prophecy say?"

I glowered at her. "It said I was going on a quest and a bunch of other crypt shit." Annabeth rolled her eyes and I tried to push past her, but she was faster. Her hands shoved me down the hill and I rolled over the green. "You bitch!" I swore, dizzy from the spinning.

Staggering back to my feet, I tried to somehow work around the tall blonde barrier in my path, but all Annabeth had to do was take smooth, fluid strides from side to side and I was thwarted yet again. The vertigo was still making my head spin with a vengeance, and when I tried to outmaneuver her to the right, but instead I overbalanced and only managed to catch myself on the pine tree just before I landed face-first.

I sighed in defeat, rapping my forehead lightly against the bark. I felt something nudge my inner thigh and glanced down to see a sweet, innocent gold dragon affectionately nuzzling me. His large, tawny eyes seemed to brim with tears and I narrowed my eyes. Leave it to a dragon to tell you when you were about to die.

I seriously had to get out of here.

I turned to face Annabeth crossing my arms. The problem was, I was sick enough that all it managed to do was toss me on my ass. I cursed, shoving myself to my feet and trying to somehow squeeze past the daughter of Athena, but her misleadingly strong hands gripped my shoulders and stopped me yet again.

"Eric," she said somberly, almost as if she was talking to a hospitalized man. "What's wrong?"

I forced myself to maintain a steely expression. "Absolutely nothing." I said irritably, crossing my arms and prying her hands off of me. "I'm spit and spam. Now please get out of my way."

Something flashed across Annabeth's eyes and she let me go. "Eric," she said before stepping aside. "Are you-are you ill?"

"Sick?" I shook my head. "I haven't had a cold in months. Why?" I realized too late that I was sounding civilized.

"Because..." Annabeth trailed off and chewed her lower lip. "You know what? Never mind. Good luck on your quest." She stepped aside and, just as I breached the barrier, added, "Prophecies have a lot of double meanings, Eric. I wouldn't worry too much if one told you you were going to die."

"Yeah." I agreed after the magical separation between Camp Half-Blood and the real world engulfed me, deafening Annabeth to my words. "There's just one problem with that. I want to die."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Death Makes an Appearance

"I want to die."

It was true, of course. There was nothing I wanted more than to "bite the bullet," but there were some ways of death I just didn't condone.

Suicide was fantastic. In the right circumstances, you wouldn't catch me turning my nose up at murder, either. But I was simply not going to tolerate giving up.

I took a step forward, hoping to put some distance between Camp Half-Blood and me before the tremors started, but before my foot touched the ground again I went stiff as a board.

I didn't even have time to register that the symptoms were out of order. Usually, I would deal with nearly debilitating pain originating from the scar on my face and spreading over my body through my veins. After that came paralysis of various extremities until my entire body was immovable. It wasn't until a good seven minutes into that that I started having the fit.

I had hardly even acknowledged the poison before it went into overdrive. I couldn't move my leg. I tried, but the signals misfiring in my brain weren't reaching the rest of my body and I was stuck there, my breaths barely being forced out. It felt like my lungs were collapsing, which they were. The Torturer's poison functioned as a hemorrhagic illness, specifically internal bleeding. My lungs were ruptured at this point and filling with blood.

Cue the cough followed by a fountain of red spurting from my mouth...check.

I shut my eyes tight, pushing past the lack of oxygen and unbearable pain I was feeling as I called out desperately for my father. _Dad! It's happening! Help!_ To my horror, I felt nothing change about the atmosphere around me. I was still dying and there was no godly assistance rushing to my aid like it had a thousand times before.

A horrifying thought occurred to me. What if this was Hera's payback for disobeying her? What if, instead of massacring Camp, she handed me over to the Torturer and let the primordial Fear have me for eternity?

I tried to push myself up, barely managing to rest my weight on my left arm before it too lost motor function and collapsed. I knew from experience it was only a matter of minutes before the tremors started. If I didn't get the antidote soon, there was no saving me.

Hoarsely, I managed to choke out, "Hera, please..." Another cough. Another fountain of blood. "Have mercy..." My vision flickered, fading in and out of focus. This was it, I knew it. I had thought the same thing before, during other attacks, but this time it was too far along. This time I was too close to the edge. And I had broken the last ties I had with the gods. Called my last favors. No one was coming to my aid. I was alone.

Suddenly, I felt the air heat up by about fifty degrees and heard the cocky voice of Apollo laugh, "And you thought we were gonna let you die."

I felt the trickle of a disguising clear liquid on my lips and greedily lapped it up; knowing I only had a few moments until the antidote would have no effect. I had gotten used to the repulsive taste after so long of gulping it down, and now it was no worse than water. Not any better, but no worse.

Seconds passed. No longer in control of my life, I let myself fall into an awakened rest. I could still sense what was going on around me, even to the point that my sensations were heightened. Hearing, smell, touch. But my eyes were closed. I couldn't see.

While I was unconscious, I saw horrifying images dance in front of my eyes. Some were just replays of old nightmares, past experiences-the acid rain, the Titan War—but there were others, too.

I saw myself from a third person point of view, backing up frantically as a Sea Monster surged up from the depths of a coastline, roaring. The mortals fled at the sight of the monster, probably thinking it was a tsunami, but I just stood there, dumbfounded and wearing a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Then I drew Riptide and charged.

The scene changed. I was on a...was that a glacier? Yes, that was a glacier, and I was surrounded by wispy images of soldiers—shades. I was fighting them off one handed, a swirling hurricane over my head as I held a tall staff-type object back. The staff was topped with a golden eagle, the symbol of Zeus. Why was I carrying _that_?

I was someplace new again. I was standing on top of a jagged mountain peak, balancing precariously on a sharp rock under my feet and I slashed and parried frantically against a man I couldn't see. But there was something strange about the scene. Around me, water swirled angrily, foaming and splashing my adversary in the face. Likewise, I had to extinguish fireballs as they flew at me, intent on my death.

I saw desolate island next and realized only seconds after that I was just getting a different view of the same fight from before. I saw a flash of curly black hair before a bright fire engulfed me and I screamed.

"Wake up," prompted a familiar voice, a curt shake snapping me from my slumber. I bolted up straight and almost bumped heads with the god of the sun. "Whoa, there," he said, hand on my shoulder. "Calm down. Don't want to waste the energy I just gave you, now do you?"

Apollo smiled his hundred-watt grin and I had to avert my eyes so I didn't go blind. I'm not kidding. When he wasn't watching the light level, Apollo could burn you to a much different crisp than he could if he was a god. If he's in his true form, it'll just incinerate you instantly. Apollo-level-hot was like a very hot, very fast fire. Completely different type of ash.

"Hello, Lord Apollo," I winced. "Thanks for saving me."

"Don't mention it." he said happily, and then his eyes lit up. By now you should realize that his eyes literally lit up. I groaned. I knew what was coming. "Aw, I almost forgot. My haiku," Apollo cleared his throat and I braced myself.

He lies on the ground,

Half dead, hurt, and forsaken

Till I saved his life.

Despite the unbearable arrogance to it, that was actually one of Apollo's better haikus. For the god of poetry, he really was horrible.

"Nice one," I said, knowing that placating the god who had just saved my life was the on the top of my to-do list. I managed a pained smile, and Apollo sobered.

"For the god of healing, I didn't do a very good job of it." he muttered bitterly. "But there's not much I can do. That poison...I've tried to find a cure. A permanent one. I really have. I've worked with your father, and Athena, and Hecate...but there's nothing. The best bet you have is the antidote. The only other way is to..." Apollo stopped abruptly, the sky rumbling angrily overhead.

I knew what that meant. Apollo was being warned not to continue. More than likely courtesy of Hera, that thunder had been a reminder to the sun god that further enlightenment on my part might result in a not-so-pleasant return to Olympus. And all of my life, I hadn't cared. Well, at least not enough to openly object more than "Hey, that's not fair." But this time, Apollo was keeping a very different thing secret.

I had suffered from the Torturer for four years, and I was sick of it. Pun intended.

"Oh no, you don't." I said, pushing myself forward and grabbing his collar. Apollo's eyes widened, but I didn't loosen my grip. "You're going to finish that sentence, or I'm going to make you. Got it?"

Apollo gulped, blue eyes wide in horror, and tried to pry my hands from his collar. But god or no, I was not going to let him go that easily. I tightened my grip, arms shaking from the strain, and pulled him closer so we were nose to nose. "Now, now, Percy, you wouldn't want to..."

"Wouldn't want to what?" I hissed maliciously. "To hurt one of the people who _ruined_ my life? To find a way to kill a god? Oh, but Lord Apollo, how wrong you are." I reached into my pack and withdrew a single Celestial bronze knife. "Tell me what I want to know," I told him, pressing the tip of my knife where Apollo stacked most of his pride. "Or we'll find out just how fast Olympians can heal. Because if it's not fast enough..." I smiled. "I wouldn't expect many new recruits to the Apollo cabin for quite a while, now would you?"

"Percy..." Apollo warned, but winced when I drove my knife in.

"It's Eric now, Apollo. Remember? You're part of the council that decided it."

"You don't understand." He said desperately. "If I told you, then..." he stopped again, and my anger flared. I shoved him backward, slashing his across the chest before leaping into the air, knife descending down where his throat would have been.

Only to impale in the ground.

I let out a strangled yell and yanked the knife from the ground, hollering heavenward. "Why do you have to do this?" I demanded. "Why do you have to torture me? Wasn't banishing me enough? Wasn't _Tartarus_ enough? Now you have to make me live with this souvenir—" I pointed at my face. "And not give me what I need to get rid of it? What the Hades did I do to you?"

"Who are you talking to?"

I whirled around in horror and saw Nico di Angelo standing in front of me, arms folded over his chest and a suspicious expression on his face. My jaw dropped open. Not so much because he had magically appeared behind me or that he was giving me attitude, that was normal, but because he was dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and faded—not black—faded blue jeans. His sword was still sheathed at his side, but he certainly did not look like the Nico I had grown used to.

"None of your business." I snapped irritably, masking my alarm with the exterior I had mastered. Nico raised an eyebrow.

"Is that your response to everything people say to you. 'None of your business.' Gods, your life is either really fucked up or you're too much of an oblivious asshole to want friends."

I chuckled dryly. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" I asked him, picking up and pack and starting to turn. Then I realized what I had just said and immediately regretted it. Wait, why was I regretting it? I didn't care anymore, right? Yes, right. No more retrospective questions, Jackson. Eric. What the Hades is wrong with you, idiot? Get your head back on straight and walk away.

"My mother is dead." Damn it. Nico's heartbroken tone appealed to that surviving Paladin, protective cousin side of me and I turned around, tempted to comfort him. Then I slapped myself mentally. I still blamed Aphrodite. "So is my sister."

Before I could sympathize, I reverted into the jackass I had become. "Oh, is poor wittle Wico all awone?"

This time, I did regret what I said. Because Nico lunged at me with blood in his eye.

Dark eyes flashed like onyx in sunlight and his sword was at my throat in an instant. Using my knife, still in hand, I swatted the attack aside before it could "kill" me. Really, I was just preventing Nico from discovering I had the Curse of Achilles.

I dove to the ground, tumbling away before Nico could press his advantage and continued to ward off fevered attacks from my cousin, struggling not to give ground but being forced to out of necessity. Before I had the Curse, I wouldn't have minded a few nicks on the arm or cheek as long as they were fatal and gave me an opportunity. But Nico had been there when I'd bathed in the Styx and fought an army of his dad's skeleton warriors single-handedly. If he noticed so much as one injury that didn't show up, I was screwed.

I stepped inside his next swing, resorting to the impossible and trapped Nico's hand with the hilt of my knife. The son of Hades struggled with me for a few moments before I kicked him away and spit on the ground. "Sorry, kid. You're going to have to try harder next time."

Nico propped himself up on his elbow and wiped his mouth, shaking his head. "You're the very definition of an asshole, Eric, you know that? I know I was bad for a while, but at least I grew up. You...you're just one big jumble of fucked up with no chance of unraveling. Whatever happened to you made you into a monster. No, you're worse than a monster. You're a half-blood gone bad. Corrupted. We're supposed to be heroes, Eric, not self-centered cowards who periodically dabble in villainy."

"Are you calling me evil?" I demanded.

"No," Nico snapped back. "But you're on the fast track to 'throw-your-heartless-ass-in-Punishment-and-make-you-Alecto's-special-pet.' Keep this up, and whatever good you did in previous lives doesn't matter."

"I'm not so sure I follow you."

Nico laughed, pushing himself to his feet. "You don't?" Amusement danced in his eyes. "Well, let's see if I can spell it out for you. What do you know about Luke Castellan?"

Before I could stop myself, I said, "Guy with the right idea?" I winced, realizing what I had just admitted to. Hating the gods was not a way to earn you brownie points with their kids. Nico's eyes darkened.

"I seriously hope that was a joke, Eric. Luke betrayed the gods and his family. He joined Kronos and tried to destroy Olympus. His only redeeming quality was the fact that he gave up his life in the end for the sake of Olympus. But even then, he was going to die anyway. It was more out a spite than anything else."

I tensed at the slur. I knew better. I saw Luke's indecision in those final moments, wrestling with his last act. He hadn't been spiteful then. He tried to make amends and listening to Nico trash-talk a dead man was not sitting well with me. "So what? You're saying I'm the next Luke Castellan?"

"Maybe," Nico admitted easily. "It wouldn't surprise me, the way you're acting." He stormed forward, pushing me aside as he headed toward a small shadow in the trees. But before he left, he turned and said, "I gave you two months to put your act together, Eric. You didn't. And pretty soon, you're going to find out what it means to make me your enemy."

And he was gone.

**I'm thinking overly insane Percy was a bit of an overkill. Sorry for the poor quality of this chapter. I have a plan going into effect in the next couple chapters that will really be some quality writing, but first I have to get there. And I just can't keep dwelling on this part. I've got my novel to work on, and I'm planning to finish these fanfictions so I can move on with my life. **

** So instead of calling it Part 2, the sequel is going to be "The Fire-Sea Pact." I'll let you guys speculate as to what it's going to be about. But like I've said before, it's going to be kind of boring, but it also won't be on its way until next summer at the earliest.**

**I'm also turning Burning into a bunch of one-shots relating to The Scarred Hero. I might change the title and synopsis and then give you guys the new one. But reading it is optional. In case no one realized, reading Burning was kind of unnecessary, but it helped give you another side to what's going on here. **

**Pretty soon, the lines between good guy and bad guy are going to blur, and then there isn't going to be much in between. **


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lies and Truths and I Don't Know What Else

I was really starting to wonder why I had accepted this stupid quest.

I could easily have headed somewhere far off in the distance and let Camp Half-Blood designate a new quester. I could have sent an Iris Message Chiron's way and staged it at the perfect time for a monster to lunge out from the shadows and "kill me" as I dispersed the Mist. I could have simply headed south into Florida and hidden out in Mexico for a few years before resurfacing in the US with a new identity and look. There were a thousand things I not only knew how to do, but had done before in desperate times.

But instead of being smart and laying low for a few months, I forged on through the vacant dirt roads, hitchhiked with illiterate truckers, and even hijacked a motorcycle from some wealthy businessman who had it stupidly parked in his U-Haul on top of a freaking Porsche. Besides, stealing the bike had distracted him from a nervous looking teenage girl he was talking up.

I should have cut my losses. In retrospect, if I had turned off Interstate 95 and set out through New Jersey, I could have conned any nice old lady into giving me a ride into at least Georgia. But no. Because Percy-Paladin-Jackson didn't do that. He kept his word.

Stupid undying hero. I really wished he would die.

I was stomping nosily through a forest a couple miles south of Washington D.C. I hadn't actually passed through the capital, although it would have been easy to do. But I wanted to keep a down-low and D.C. was notorious among demigods for its monster infestation. So I trekked the roads, carefully avoiding Greek-Demon Ville and sticking to Interstate 95. According to my map (shoplifted from a small convenience store in Trenton, New Jersey) if I took I95 for long enough, I could turn off onto 85 and take that down through Richmond and finally head east down an unmarked road into Brodnax.

I had abandoned the motorcycle when some cop pulled me over. Mr. Sleazy Millionaire hadn't actually called it in as stolen, and the only I was pulled over was because I was a couple miles over the speed limit. Which, I'll admit, isn't the safest course of action on a highway. But I was in a hurry to get away from the shady truck that had been tailing me for three days. Once I talked the officer down, I glanced him on his walkie-talkie through the side-view mirror. He scribbled something down on a notepad, eyes transfixed on my license plate.

I ditched the bike just the Pennsylvania Turnpike and hitched a ride with loquacious trucker who drove me about as far as Philadelphia. Then I had to excuse myself to the little boys' room of a truck stop and sneak out the back. I was beginning to question the sexuality and reserves of my newly-found acquaintance, and although I found no problem with people of varying orientation, I started to feel like I was being hit on. Either that or he was a satyr who sensed I was a demigod and planned to arrange the trip back to safety. He was overly invested in my father's MIA status.

After that, I set out by foot. The entire trip had taken about six days so far, and my nerves were starting to flare up. Being a demigod, instincts were nothing to scoff at. Your gut tells you the nice-looking old woman offering you a place to stay for the night was a monster; you get the Hades out of there before she forces the poison down your throat. Granted, half-bloods are way more paranoid than most people and their guts can jump the gun a little bit, but ninety-nine percent of the time, it's trustworthy.

And the hairs on my arms had been bristling since I ditched the trucker back in Pennsylvania. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was _still_ being followed, despite the false Mist trails I had littered in my path to waylay monsters and confuse curious mortals. I had frequently altered my course, setting me back a day or more, before swinging around again and following I95 again. I hoped the zigzagging would throw off whoever it was, but the feeling of unease didn't die down.

Nowadays I walked with my hand buried deep in my pocket, ready to draw Riptide at any moment and vaporize my stalker. But I never got the chance.

My quest had been almost completely uneventful so far. I couldn't tell if that meant Chiron was right and all the monsters were massing forces in Brodnax or if it meant he was miles off targets. I should have had some giant, cumbersome brute to liven up my day by now, but the closest I'd come was one Lastrygonian existing so easily among mortals it was painful to watch. I let him be; hoping the act of indifference wouldn't cost another demigod their life someday. But that was it. No attacks. No distant snarling or crashing through the foliage. Not even a questionable footprint.

I had nothing to actually confirm Chiron's suspicions about a massing army, nor did I have one scrap of proof my nightmare last night had been true.

I should probably explain. The night before I had camped for the first time in three days. Every other time had been a thirty minute nap against the trunk of a tree with my eyes only half-closed. So allowing myself a nice rest for the night was welcome to my tired, abused limbs. Not that they should have complained. In the weeks leading up to my imprisonment in Tartarus, I hadn't slept in two months. That was actually why the monsters caught up with me to kill me. I finally crashed in a safe house. The Albany one to be exact.

My blood stain is still in those sheets to this day.

I lit a small fire with a lighter and some wood, clearing away nearby brambles so I didn't start a forest fire while I slept. Then I laid back and gave myself some much needed shuteye.

No sooner had I closed my lids than the nightmares hit. At first, they were normal. Recollections of my time in Tartarus, worst-case scenarios in which Annabeth or someone else discovered my identity, having a slideshow of every broken body I had ever seen run through my head, including some dead bodies that didn't exist yet.

It started to get really bad when I dreamt of my sixteenth birthday.

Cloud Nine wasn't enough to describe my elation at that time. I was just dancing with Annabeth, having the time of my life while the Muses played their instruments with undeniable skill and versatility. After all, everyone heard a different song.

It had been an interesting day, even before Hera stole me away for a "private word." Annabeth had been dancing with me to really fast music when I accidentally tripped her and she fell into my arms. A hasty apology was on my lips when she pressed her forefinger against them and smiled. "Don't worry about it, Seaweed Brain. I like the view."

I had absolutely no idea what she meant by that. I faltered, stopping dead as the music adopted a much slower rhythm, one more appropriate for a slow dance rather than just a good time between friends.

I was holding Annabeth's forearms to keep her from falling. She righted herself gracefully, standing on her own two feet no more than five millimeters from my face. And I was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to kiss her.

I didn't let go of her arms, but Annabeth didn't object. She leaned in teasingly close, her breath bellowing up against my face, warm and welcome. My eyes drifted closed, and then... "O my gods" a squeaky voice exclaimed from nearby. Annabeth and I shot apart, and I found myself very conscious of my shoes.

It was Lacy, a bubbly Aphrodite girl with passive-aggressive interest in other people's relationships. When I got back to camp after my quest to save Artemis, I strongly suspected her mother had somehow contacted and asked her to catalyze some fanciful relationship between Annabeth and me. She always made me uneasy, especially when Annabeth was near the both of us.

Suddenly, it dawned on me what Lacy must have thought. And although it was probably true, I did not need the rumors. "Um, er... Lacy, wha—It's not what you think!" It all kind of rushed out of my mouth, and I glanced over at Annabeth nervously, waiting for the verbal lashing. It never came. Instead, I got a weak look and halfhearted wink.

Annabeth turned to Lacy and smiled. "We were just having fun. He's kind of earned it." Before I could eve process the compliment, Annabeth had hooked her arm through mine and was leaning against me with a patient smirk on her face.

Lacy's eyes widened and she clapped her and she clapped her hands together excitedly, jumping up and down. "No way!" she squealed. "Oh, just wait till I tell Frankie! She'll freak!" And with that, Lacy ran off, weaving through the dancing couples and calling out for Frankie.

I was horrified. "Oh gods," I breathed, shaking my head. "Oh no, this isn't happening. By the time we get back, there won't be a single camper who doesn't think we're dating!" I disengaged my arm from Annabeth's and buried my face in my hands.

"Would that really so bad?" I looked up in alarm. Annabeth sounded hurt. Her grey eyes were brimming with an emotion I didn't quite recognize. She pulled away from me, crestfallen.

Then it occurred to me what that must have sounded like. "Wait! I didn't mean I don't like you. I do. I mean, well, not that way. But you don't like me and... No, you do. I just don't want Camp getting the wrong idea. Not that dating you would be a bad thing, it's just..." There I went again, digging myself a hole deeper than Tartarus. I was _so_ adept at scaring girls off.

But Annabeth didn't scowl or scoff at my awkwardness. She laughed at me, gripping my hand with her arm and standing like she intended to dance. I mean, actually dance, ballroom style. Was she crazy? I couldn't dance at all, a fact she knew painfully well from all the instances I had tripped her. "Relax, Seaweed Brain," she teased, grabbing my other hand and placing it on her hand. I felt the warmth of her body radiate through her plain orange shirt.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a long, flowing blue dress bellow around a skilled pair of dancers as they weaved along the hall. I recognized Ares' face, and when the shifting beauty of Aphrodite entered my vision, I knew she was interfering somehow.

But at the same time, I didn't care.

And then disaster struck. "Perseus Jackson!" Before I had even registered whose voice had called, the crowd parted like the Red Sea. And standing at the far end of the throne room, in front of the double doors, was Hera.

The Queen of the Gods looked as simply feral as ever. She maintained a dangerousness to her, a cold, detached look in her eyes that came and went depending on her mood. A gorgeous Greek chiton hung from her body, making her look regal and beautiful. Her long chocolate hair was braided down her left shoulder. Her arms were spread, but I didn't feel welcomed. I felt scared.

"I will speak with you now, before you and the other demigods leave for Camp Half-Blood. It is important that I do so." She focused her cold eyes on me and I stepped back in fear. I felt Annabeth frozen behind me, as horrified as I was. Hera noticed my fear and smiled, almost managing to look sympathetic. "I promise I will not harm you."

"Harm" is controversial. Apparently Hera believed permanent psychiatric damage was not harmful.

I swallowed nervously, taking a small step forward. I felt a hundred eyes on me, all waiting for my response. I felt Annabeth grab my arm. I whirled around to meet her flashing grey eyes, desperate and pleading. "Don't do it." she begged.

I managed a hoarse, fake laugh. "What's she gonna do to me? I'm the hero of Olympus. Besides, my dad'd kill her if she hurt me. And she promised not to."

Annabeth didn't look reassured. She pursed her lips, glancing over my shoulder at the impatient goddess waiting for me. "I have a bad feeling about this." She told me, eyes actually brimming with tears. I didn't understand what scared her so badly. "I can't shake the feeling that... I can't shake the feeling that if you go with her I'll never see you again."

And in that moment, when I looked back at the icy Queen, I knew Annabeth was right. Whatever private word Hera wanted, it would be painful and life-altering.

This was the goddess who had possessed Hercules to kill his family and embark on Seven Labors in penance. This was the goddess who cursed Echo in the myths for keeping a secret from her. She was the goddess who banished Leto to a far off island to give birth to Artemis and Apollo. She was the goddess who had virtually handed Nico di Angelo over to Kronos because she thought he was the imperfect nephew.

Hera was jealous, vengeful, and bitter. However justified her anger might have been when she first married Zeus, everything that had happened to her since had turned her into a dangerous cross between monster and goddess. She was spiteful, and that fact alone told me that if I accepted her offer of friendly conversation, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

But one look at her fiery eyes and I knew refusal was not an option.

I peeled Annabeth's fingers off my arm one by one and grinned at her. "Relax," I told her, giving her a thumbs-up. "It'll be fine."

I didn't believe that, and neither did she. But she let me go, and I walked down the aisle toward the Queen, my smile vanishing once I was out of sight of Annabeth. Nearby spectators recoiled. I stopped in front of Hera and said coldly, "What do you want?"

She only smiled back at me and motioned through the doors with her arm. The chiton flowed over the ground. "Only a friendly conversation between an aunt and her nephew."

"We both know that's a lie, Hera."

"Lady," she corrected curtly, her smile unfailing. She motioned again toward the exit, and I hesitated for a moment, eyeing her suspiciously, and pushed open the doors.

She led me at a brisk walk through a series of halls I had never seen before. I was tempted to ask her where we were going, but I held my tongue, knowing the best I would get would be some sort of riddle. I had to job along behind her just to keep her in sight. Hera seemed to grow larger and larger with every step, simultaneously glowing brighter. I was afraid of being vaporized, but I figured turning my eyes away would be a sign of weakness she'd exploit. So I kept my eyes straight ahead, watching her weave and turn sharply as she navigated Olympus.

Her chiton floated along behind her, braid bouncing as she moved. Magically maintained beauty made her glow ethereal, even without a full-fledged true-form to speak of. I remembered the story of the Trojan War suddenly, how the entire conflict had been started because Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena had bickered over who was the most beautiful. In my opinion, despite her youthful elegance, Hera wasn't even in the running. Her heart was too bitter.

Finally, Hera stopped. She'd given me no warning whatsoever, causing me to slam into her. She looked over her shoulder and down her nose at me, eyes flashing. I recoiled, pulling away slightly. But then Hera opened the simple door in front of her and motioned for me to step inside.

Before I complied, however, I examined the room. It was a greenhouse, heat radiating out and bathing my skin in perspiration. Beautiful rose heads and lilies and amaryllises bloomed in every corner, pots bursting with color. It reminded me a little strongly about Calypso's garden.

I stepped inside, but as I crossed the threshold, I felt the hairs on my neck tingle uneasily. I pursed my lips and turned back to the door, mouth already forming my question. "Why did you bring me he—here?"

Hera wasn't standing at the door. When I turned around to explore the room, I couldn't see her. I checked behind the tall and short plants, searching every nook and cranny vigilantly. But no Hera. The beginnings of fear crept up through my throat, but then they jumped ship and plummeted back into my stomach to form a tight knot.

I clenched my fists as I lifted a yellowish-green leafy bush thing out of my way. Still, Hera was nowhere to be seen. "Okay," I said, exasperated. "You want to be this way? Be this way. But I'm leaving."

I turned on my heel and headed for the door, hand outstretched to twist the knob and leave. But suddenly, there was someone standing in front of me that hadn't been there before. And it wasn't Hera.

He—at least I assumed it was male, as the facial structure resembled as much and his head was smoother than polished marble—wore a spiffy black business suit with his hands occupying themselves with an unnerving knife. Carved like a winding river, blacker than midnight, with the tip and edges stained with fresh red blood, dripping onto the floor. I somehow forced myself to meet his eyes and I regretted it. They were onyxes, no white, no veins to be seen, and no iris of any color. They were the blackest thing of all, aside from maybe his veins and arteries, with looked like black ink had been dropped on a napkin. Spreading all over his face, clearly defined, with sharp, feral cheekbones. He had no hair, and his hands were covered in dried blood. Dried blood I somehow knew did not belong to him.

I gulped. "Hello," My voice came out weak, kind of squeaky like a mouse. Part of me told me I should know this monster, but I didn't recognize him.

"Hello?" he laughed heartily, and a light chuckle was yanked from me almost against my will. He stepped around me, examining the greenhouse. He lifted a snapdragon and gave it a light whiff, sighing dejectedly. "Shame, really, how these things have no scent."

I frowned. "What are you talking about? Of course they do. They're flowers."

He laughed again, but this time its enthusiasm wasn't contagious. It felt cold, like chilled metal rubbed against another piece. Grating, bitter. He turned around to face me, a deceptively polite smile on his face. But the monstrousness of his features could not be masked. He took a step toward me and I backed away toward the door. "So you do remember me?" He pouted out his lip at my bewildered expression. I still felt like I should have known him, but his identity was stuck in my petrified subconscious. "Well, I guess you wouldn't. This is a dream, after all. Oo, it's been _so_ long since I've invaded a good nightmare. I've manipulated them plenty, sure, but to actually relive the worst moment of your life with you?"

The plants rustled from a breeze colder than Antarctica. Goosebumps arose along my arms, and then he was standing there. Looking at me with a pleased expression. He inhaled deeply. "It's a real honor, Eric."

I whimpered. "What are you?"

He straightened, standing a few feet away from me. "I'm Fear Itself, Eric. The primordial that started it all. The Ancient Being that is the basis for everything. Without me, there can be no hope, for hope is in my spite. Without me, there can be no anger, for anger comes from fear. Fear spurs hatred, and hatred spurs war. War is the antithesis of peace, and thus peace cannot exist without. Love is a hope for compassion, and compassion is derived from love. Happiness cannot exist without hope in something better. Faith is hope. Determination is because of the fear of failure." He leaned in close, cold breath blowing against my face. "And courage did not exist before I came. So you have me to thank for all your pitiful emotions. I was the start of it all!"

He reached out toward me, but I scampered back, overcome by pure terror. I started screaming my head of, calling for help, begging for someone to save me, but Fear just laughed. "Foolish of you, Eric. Don't you remember? You lost your friends today." I was staring deep into his eyes now, held there in thrall. "I've almost unearthed your real name, Eric. Very soon, I will escape, and then you can run from me no more!"

He grabbed my shoulders and I sat bolt upright, screaming my head off.

Sweat flowed down my brow like a waterfall. I was panting; feeling like my lungs had recently been compressed.

It took me several minutes to calm down. In that time, I paced, kicked, screamed, punched a tree, drew Riptide and went berserk, and muttered reassuring words under my breath. To an unbiased observer, I must have looked completely insane. They would have been right.

"Okay," I muttered, trying to catch my breath. "It was just a dream. Relax. Just your imagination running away with you? Right, Jackson? Right?"

I looked around, trying to remember which direction I had been heading. After walking around frantically like a crazy person for a while, I lost my bearings. And I had no landmarks. I was surrounded by identical looking trees. All tall. All green. Wonderful.

I shoulder my pack again, stomping out my fire and scattering the blackened embers, covering them with earth and trying to mask my presence. I still felt like I was being followed, but I doubted there was much I could do about it. Except make it difficult for them to find me.

I shuddered, mentally scolding myself for being so irrational. It was a dream. Granted, it was the first dream you've had in a while with the Torturer in it, and you didn't even know who he was, and... Was I saying this aloud?

I took a small step forward and felt something hard underneath my foot. I lifted up my toes and glanced down, thinking something might have fallen out of my bag. When I bent down to examine it, I saw that it was a coin.

Plain silver, like the drachmas used in Ancient Greece. I picked it up, puzzling over the design. On both sides, it had the symbol of a woman's smirking face. She had long hair and a fair face, but the beauty was muddled with a badly forged coin.

Unfortunately, I recognized that face. It belonged to Apate, goddess of deceit. I had met her once, shortly after discovering the truth about her daughter. She smiled at me and assured me that Anne had not been the first person to pull the wool over my eyes, nor would she be the last. Then she let me on a guessing game, trying to figure out if what she said about Hera lying to me was truth or fiction. Eventually, I decided not to risk it and told her to leave.

"_Family is a tricky thing, much like me. You have to do things for your family none of you like, and usually nothing turns out right. Or maybe it does. But lying goes hand-in-hand with trust, you know. You've got to lie about lying, because otherwise you don't get trust. Or maybe you don't want people to trust you. Then you lie about not lying, or you lie obviously. Or you pretend you're not lying and trick them later."_

"_What the Hades are you talking about?"_

"_A brilliant lie. Worthy of me."_

"_Excuse me?"_

"_Janus has nothing on lies."_

"_Lies have nothing on Janus. And you're confusing me."_

"_Am I lying to you when I lie about Hera lying to you?"_

"_What the hell?"_

"_Am I lying when I lie about Hera telling you the truth?"_

"_What the fuck?"_

"_Am I lying when I tell you the truth about lying to Hera so she would lie to you?"_

"_I give up."_

"_I am lying when I lie about Hera lying to you. I lie when I tell you that lies won't come soon. I am lying when I tell you that your friends won't fall for your lies but will fall for your disguise. I lie when I tell you an old fear's lies are the lies you think they are."_

"_I thought it was Janus' job to confuse the shit out of people."_

"_Janus has nothing on lies."_

"_I still don't know what you're talking about. And don't you hate me? I almost killed your daughter!"_

"_I am lying when I lie to you about being angry."_

"_So you do hate me?"_

"_I am lying when I tell you I lied about lying to Percy Jackson."_

"_Go away."_

"_Reading a lie is more effective than reading a book. Books lie too."_

"_I seriously don't get you."_

"_Lie down."_

I shook my head, not wanting to remember the strange conversation between me and the goddess of deceit. I stopped trying to figure out what she was saying a long time ago, and even if I had riddled her out, it was probably all just a lie anyway. I hoped.

I stared at the coin, horror rising in my chest. Not because of Apate confusing tirade and riddles, but because I knew the only person alive with this kind of a coin.

Intimately.

**That was pretty long. Longer than I expected.**

**So the italicized portion starts out with Apate talking, if you didn't already figure that out. The rest of the exchange should make sense as far as who's talking goes. You have to riddle out what Apate actually means when she's talking to Percy. And Apate is a chaotic neutral character who won't show up after this, so rest assured.**

**I am telling you that this chapter holds disguised keys to the future. If you want to riddle it out (italicized for a 100, Alex) figure out what Apate is saying. Or don't risk the headache and get dragged along for the ride with Percy. Just so you know, don't feel bad about getting confused. I literally just spent an hour figuring out my own freaking exchange, and now I have a headache. Turns out everything I said was sound the first time, and trying to figure it out again didn't work well. So it's good now. **

**I both love and hate Apate. I both love and hate Anne. Anybody else notice a trend here?**

**It should be pretty obvious whose coin it is, but if you don't know. Wait till I finally get around to uploading the next chapter. Then it'll be explained. But if you review the prophecy, you'll know then too. **

**I'm spelling things out for you without actually spelling things out and I feel so evil for it. Somebody, if you think you have the answer to the little slanted argument up there, PM me it instead of reviewing. Please. **

**I have a lot of things to say otherwise, so here goes.**

**This is the last leg for FF, meaning I'll be starting on The Fire-Sea Pact any day now. Next chapter and on will be easy to write as I already know what I'm doing for them. I'm introducing a character next chapter that you won't actually meet until the chapter after. When you do meet him, please review to tell me your opinions. I'm going to use them to make you guys feel better about something, so it's in your best interest. **

**I am making three series about this timeline, all building off of each other. Something happens at the end of Siren's Song, the 3****rd**** and last in this series, that leads into The Empty Sea, which is the 1****st**** of the next series. **

**Here's how the books are going to play out:**

**Series #1: The Scarred Hero**

**The Forgotten Fear**

**The Fire-Sea Pact**

**The Siren's Song**

**Series #2: The Other Outcome**

**The Empty Sea**

**The Empty Forge**

**The Unfinished Prophecy**

**Series #3: The Prophesied Seven**

**The Partial Six**

**The Living Martyr**

**The War Without Conclusion**

**All titles suck. If you have better ideas that seem like they could coincide with preexisting ones, please tell me. These are all terrible. **

**This story is being told strictly in Percy's POV. The next will be told in Percy's POV but mainly in someone else's. The one after that will be told in those same two POV's about equally. The next series is being told completely by one narrator each book. To give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, The Empty Sea is Percy's book, and The Unfinished Prophecy is Sam's. You can guess who the middle one is next book. **

**The last might be told in third person, I haven't decided. Probably not, because I love first. But there will be a lot of narrators there, so be forewarned. If I actually do keep writing long enough to finish those. I hope so. **

**What else? Oh, and Burning is now Aftermath, which those of you who favorited it (thank you) already know. I've added like three more chapters, but number three sucks. Epically. I'm going to fix it when I have time. If you read that story, you might be able to piece together some more information on what's going on. Figure out the pieces Percy doesn't have. Yet.**

**I want to give you guys a poll now:**

**Before reading this story, what was your opinion of Hera? And after reading it, did that feeling change?**

**I sound like a shrink. But it actually matters to me, writing-wise. So please answer it among your other reviews. And please do review.**


	24. Chapter 24

**I'm evil for being gone for so long. I started another fic and am two chapters in, which makes me feel terrible for not updating this one. Thank god I'm like, three chapters from the end of this. Then I can breathe and start Fire-Sea Pact, which I'll enjoy writing more than this. Now this thing is getting grueling and annoying because I can't kill the repetition. But if you look close enough, there are some encouraging parts.**

**When you read this chapter, it might seem a little Percy/Anne. It's meant to be that way, but don't get your panties in a bunch. I still ship Percy/Annabeth like there's no tomorrow, I'm just adding a little more depth to the dynamic. Remember Riordan's obsession with all things love triangle? Well, voila!**

Chapter Twenty-Four

I Run...

For a stunned, petrified moment, I stared at the coin. The horror I should have felt at seeing a testament to my failed romance didn't come for a while. Mostly, I was too shocked to think about the ramifications. I had this reflective thought about how Anne actually had been pretty and nice, at least until she revealed her true colors.

Because I was innately self-destructive, I started correlating some of Emily Richardson's characteristics with Annabeth's. Granted, Emily had been a dark brunette with creamy golden eyes, but personality-wise, they had a lot of similarities. Their uncanny ability to notice whenever I was doing something stupid or obnoxious and calling me on it even though they weren't actually looking at me. The fact they always railed at me for virtually everything I did, then sighed in exasperation and excused my behavior. When I looked back on my days with Anne, I wondered if she had started to develop feelings back toward me. But then I immediately discounted the fallacy and returned my attention to the task at hand.

But now, the world started to fall away piece by piece, leaving nothing but the memories I'd shared with my ex-fiance. That endearing Christmas that almost - _almost - _made everything else worthwhile. I'd gone through a lot of trouble to get all of the classic holiday fixings, including a half-off used stereo to play Christmas music. I got this tiny little Christmas tree and slipped the miniature ornaments into my pockets on my way out of the store, Misting the security guard into thinking I had paid for it. There was a reindeer patterned blanket on the ground and a picnic basket bursting with Christmas cookies both store-brought and graciously provided homemade chocolate chips and snickerdoodles and sugar and gingerbread. Emily and I had enjoyed the last of the truly great Christmases, sitting around the fake tree and singing off-key carols till we were hoarse and drunk off of eggnog into incoherency.

Emily curled up in my lap, clad tightly in multiple jackets with warm gloves. "I don't know how to thank you for this, Eric. It's wonderful." Her beautiful eyes found mine, and I grinned. It was almost like the crooked beaming that used to be my signature back in my youth at Camp. Emily knitted her warm mitten fingers with my bare fingers.

"Only the best for my lady," I bent down and kissed her gingerly on the lips. "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" came on and we started singing along. Finally, while the song was fading out, I asked, "When's the last time you celebrated Christmas."

Emily looked away for a moment, still laying in my lap, and thought hard. When a smile finally broke out over her face, it was genuine. "The last time my father was sober. He'd gone broke and couldn't get any presents, but that meant no boos either. He took me and sat me by the Christmas Tree in the square and we drank hot chocolate and ate s'mores and laughed. The week after, he was killed late at night by a mugging. Just his luck that the first month in years he'd been completely sane, and he gets killed by a couple 'a greedy bastards with guns." Emily talked about it like it was the best memory of her life, even though it sounded depressing and bittersweet to me. I guess it was in the eye of the beholder. "You?" she asked suddenly, surprising me.

I started, then chuckled. "I was fifteen. I'd just gotten home from a qu - I mean, from a fight. My mom was waiting at home with her husband, Paul, and raiding the cookie jar. She was so worried when I got back, started freaking out over every little scratch on me. Nearly fainted when I told her about the Keres..." I stopped myself short, wincing at the near-death experience. I instinctively held my side, but then I remembered I was safe with Emily and calmed down. "Anyway, she got me a new knife. Apparently managed to finangle it out of someone she wouldn't tell me about. We told Paul about everything then, and he actually didn't run off."

"What was your best Christmas?" Emily asked suddenly. I shook my head.

"You first."

"Already told you."

I stopped, stumped. The sagged in defeat. "My friend, Annabeth, visited. We'd almost died together, so she stuck by me for the winter, even though her dad wanted her home. We almost..."

"First girlfriend?" Emily probed anxiously, sitting up. I rolled my eyes.

"We almost hit my mom in the face with a snow ball." I finished, deciding it best not to tell her about the kiss on Mount Saint Helens. Emily sighed and punched me in the arm. "Ow!" I cried, legitimately hurt. The Curse of Achilles didn't make me completely invincible, and Emily could really hit hard. I rubbed my arm. "What was that for?"

"For hitting your incredibly amazing mother in the face with a ball of ice." She smacked me playfully upside the head and I chuckled.

"Annabeth threw the thing, not me. And Mom ducked."

My girlfriend sighed and rested her head against my shoulder. For a moment everything was quiet and quaint and perfect. Suddenly, Emily looked up at me. "Eric," she asked. "What would you say if I told I'm not who you think I am?"

I leaned away from her, startled. "I... Well, I'm not sure. Probably tell you I'm not who you think either." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously and I hastily covered my tracks. "Not that there's anything I'm keeping from you, 'course. You know, just hypothetically." I paused for a second, thinking. "This _is_ hypothetical, right? I mean, you're not serious."

For a heartbeat, Emily's face was frozen in horror. But then she laughed and ruffled my hair. "Don't be stupid. Of course I'm kidding. Just pulling your leg, right?"

I smiled in relief. "Just pulling my leg, huh? Well, I'll pull yours." I lunged after her, and Emily squealed playfully, standing up and running around the plateau. For a few hours, I felt like I was still a sweet, innocent kid surrounded by people he loved and who loved him.

Puzzling over Anne's coin, I still felt that juvenile warmth spread through me. She had always somehow managed to manipulate my emotions that way, which was why I wondered if Apate was really her mother of if she was a daughter of Aphrodite. But no, the goddess of deceit was most certainly in her blood. She was too good at lying her ass off for anything else. I liked to pride myself on cunningness and shrewdness, but I had absolutely nothing on my ex. She was the worst of all cons ever. The walking lie.

I had fallen in love with her. My feelings for Annabeth (damn you, Aphrodite, can't you let me be a miserable bachelor in peace?) still dwarfed those for Anne, but they were there. Considering my predicament at the time, I hadn't been settling as much as I had been searching for something happy to focus on. With my entire world razed to the ground around me, I figured I deserved at least some joy in life. I quickly got rid of that misconception after Anne's betrayal.

Heroes aren't heroes because they get the girl and live happily ever after. They're heroes because they're the only ones who can take the suffering that position entailed. The myths had it right; nobody rides off into the sunset with everything in order and perfect. Nobody gets all their hopes and dreams fulfilled in the end. Especially not pushover sons of Poseidon without enough guts in him to tell a pushy goddess to go mind her own business and stop controlling his.

I sagged against a tree, shaking my head. I looked to my right, debating just heading off. I spotted a stick on the ground, undisturbed, that pointed that way. I suddenly remembered setting it up the night before so I didn't get confused or lost. I ran my fingers through my hair and scolded myself for wallowing again. For the life of me I couldn't seem to just _let it go_. I always had to cling to something to make myself miserable over.

As I walked, I started wondering about that. I shouldn't have - it was dangerous and presumptuous and could result in Hera getting pissy and killing my friends - but I couldn't help myself. If I could simply let it go, all of the grief and hurt and loss and anger I'd been cultivating, could all of my other problems go away too? Jeez, now I was just getting sentimental. But the thought of Hera gliding down in front of me with a smile on her face and saying, "Well done, you figured it out. Now go home." was enough to add an extra spring in my step and mirthfulness to my smile. It would never happen, and I knew it. But it was nice to fantasize.

_Careful_, a voice in the back of my head warned. _Don't get too happy. You might wind up like the old you_. I couldn't tell if that was my thoughts being facetious or not (which is strange, considering it's my own head talking to me) but before I could figure it out, lights caught my eye.

I emerged into a small clearing with a cottage in the middle. Clearly, it had been touched in years as mildew was beginning to rot the wooden exterior and the windows had long since broken and the shards lost into the foliage underneath. The door was slightly off its hinges, the metal rusting and the door splintering with age. The wildlife had already taken root, vines crawling up the walls and invading the windowsills. Usually, I would have discounted the small hut. It wasn't in good enough condition to use as even a temporary asylum, and it was in the middle of nowhere with narrow exits all over. It wasn't an opportune place to set up camp. But something about it nagged at me, like I needed to worry about it. As if blithely strolling past would be a crime.

I pursed my lips, deciding it best to trust my instincts. So I reached into my pocket and pulled out Riptide, curling my fingers around the cap and controlling my breathing so it was shallow and quiet. I stalked forward, carefully pushing twigs and leaves out of my way so I didn't step on them and alert the possible-inhabitor of my presence. My heart started hammering in my chest, my breath hitching every now and again without reason.

I stopped at the door, careful not to draw attention to myself. I took one last, small breath, and burst inside.

Only to find the barrel of a gun pointed at my head.

**I am ominous. **

**Review or that gun shoots you.**


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

A Polite Chat with my Prophesied Arch Nemesis

No sooner did I see the barrel out of the corner of my eye than I had uncapped Riptide and held the tip of the glowing blade at the redhead's throat. He obviously knew what he was doing, because instead of facing off like that classic movie scene with the gun held one-handed, he gripped the handle solidly and was poised ready to fire. If he chose to pull the trigger, I'd be in a rotten spot. Not because I was dead (the Curse of Achilles prevented it) but because I'd have to explain to an apparently paranoid lunatic about the gods or kill him. I was leaning towards kill.

"Enlighten me as to your name," he said darkly. I couldn't tell if it was an order, question, or sarcasm, because his eyes and voice remained so unnaturally emotionless I was sure he was an automation. No human being could be that cold inside.

I cracked a small smile. "You first,"

"It occurs to me that you're in no position to negotiate, considering the fact you have a sword, albeit a quality one, and I have a gun which I need only flinch to kill you with." Judging by his tone, he wouldn't lose any sleep over it either.

I decided to play the old cliché. "If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it by now."

He rolled his eyes and tilted his head to the side, cracking it. His fingers unfurled and then coiled around the gun again. To most people, that would have been intimidating. To me, it was just annoying. "You seem like an intelligent man. Think about that statement. Think really hard. You attempt to sneak - unsuccessfully, might I add - into my place of refuge with a sword and no explanation and expect me to play the bad guy? I want to know A, Who you are. B, What you want. C, How you found me. And D, Who do you work for. Start with A. Go."

I blinked. "What? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. In the name of Ha - "

"Ah, so you're a demigod? Should've assumed that from your sword, but you could just be a clear-sighted mortal. Come to think of it, you could _still_ be a clear-sighted mortal. Unfortunately for you, either way, _what_ you were was not one of my questions. Who, however, was."

"Do you actually think I'm afraid of you?" I demanded, bristling and trying my last card.

He laughed. "I really have to fight not to blow your brains out right now. Look at it this way: I've fought through more than half the country to come here and find this itty bitty town in the middle of nowhere that some moron has apparently decided is the absolute wisest place to mass an army. And, backwoods mortals being backwoods mortals, nobody notices. I've tried to get help, but nobody trusts me."

"Gee," I mumbled. "I wonder why."

"More monsters than a man could count have tried and failed to kill me. I am starting to run low on ammunition - rest assured, future corpse, I have plenty to dispose of you - and my patience is at an all time low. So, my piss-poor situation being as it is, I beseech you; tell me who the fuck you are."

His fiery dark eyes lit up with an emotion I couldn't quite recognize and I decided my best bet was to get the hell out of there. Depending on the skill only years of practice could get me, I tried to slice open his clavicle. It didn't work out quite the way I intended. Instead of giving him a minor stinging injury, I wound up with the barrel of his gun pressed against my forehead.

Somehow - and to this day I do not know how he did it - he dodged my strike and slipped past danger to emphasize his previous point. The opening was still slightly warm, and considering the otherwise near-frigid temperature outside and the vicious lack of a fire in the cottage, I knew it had been fired recently. More than likely as a fatal blow. Another quick rundown with my otherwise immobile eyes and I saw no meat lying around. It had been a dumped body. Great, so he really was a homicidal maniac. I was beginning to love my life more by the second.

My sword arm was held out at a harmless angle, making Riptide a moot point. As a matter of fact, my attacker (I had decided to call him as such despite my criminal behavior) had foregone his good form to hold my right arm still. Not that it mattered much; the rippling muscles in his arm testified that he'd be able to control the gun at least to a certain extent and it's difficult to miss when your gun is literally pressed against your opponent's head.

I was, to say the least, fucked.

"How many times do I have to ask you this question? Who," He pressed against a point on my wrist and Riptide clattered to the ground. " - are you?"

I chewed the side of my mouth. Alright, I thought. You want to play dirty. Let's play dirty.

Before he had time to react, I grabbed his gun and redirected it away from my head, turning as I went so the blast didn't blind me. True enough, the bullet blew clear through the wall, sending sharpnel flying, just as I got out of the way. I'd been fast enough to avoid being grazed, even if I hadn't been invincible, so that saved me the awkward conversation of "Oh, sorry, you can't kill me except for one tiny part of my body. Have fun hacking me to pieces until you find it." Rest assured, I stopped the trigger and pushed the button on the side that released the magazine. It dropped to the ground, and the gun followed suit soonly thereafter.

By then, my attacker had recovered enough to kick me in the stomach. Air fled my lungs in a rush, but not before I planted a solid right hook across his jaw. He lunged for his gun, but I kicked it away. He tried to grab my leg and trip only to wind up on his back with Anne's knife levelled at his throat. He swallowed.

"I'm the guy who really ought to kill you for that." I told him shortly. "Cocky asshole," I shook my head and pressed the edge against his throat harder. His eyes crossed and watched it warily.

"I should have known." he scoffed. "So, how'd you find me?"

I rolled my eyes at him and pinned one arm down with my knee and the other with my free hand. "A nice stroll through the woods and I thought I'd stop for the night."

"The night was only three hours ago. And do you always appropriate abandoned huts with your sword drawn." Then he paused. "Wait, you didn't have your sword when you first walked in. But you did the next second. What the hell is that about?"

"It's called a scabbard." I said a little too quickly.

He narrowed his eyes. "You're not wearing one."

"I had it on my belt."

"You're not wearing a belt, either. You really ought to make a mental note of what you are and aren't wearing, Slick Sword. Next time you might take a nice stroll through the woods without your pants." He cracked a smile and I could only blink dumbfoundedly at him. He glanced down at my knife and groaned. "How about we make a deal?" he said after a couple heartbeats of silence. "I promise not to go after my weapons and kill you with them, or draw brand new ones, and you promise the same thing. Including not slitting my throat with that knife of yours."

I wasn't so sure. "A deal? With the guy who just held a gun to my head? Fat chance,"

"Coming from the guy holding a knife to my throat," he pointed out irritably. I was still undecided and he seemed to think my uncertainty was a serious inconvenience to him. It was, of course, as my entire weight was pinning him to the ground. I hesitated, knife relaxing a little on his trachea, and he took the moment of opportunity to throw me off of him. I rolled along the ground, losing grip of the hilt, and looked back over to him to see him holding Anne's knife. I panicked.

Surging to my feet and drawing Riptide, I charged. I didn't yell like the movies always portray. What I did, however, was come at him swinging and faint to the side only to catch him with the tip against his chest, directly over his heart. He gaped at me for a moment, glancing down at the sword, and ran his free hand through his hair. He dropped the knife and kicked it over against the wall with his gun. "Aren't you paranoid? I was just going to give it back to you. I, unlike some people I know - " His pointed look almost made me feel bashful. " - keep my promises. Now will you please let up with the whole 'killing me' thing and calm down?"

Even though I felt like it was a the dumbest thing I had ever done and knew beyond a shadow of doubt trusting the strange half-blood half as far as I could throw him was going to result in a lot of sore limbs and bloody graves. But I backed off, letting Riptide drop to my side, and leaned against the wall. I didn't let down my guard, however, but I wasn't geared up for another bout.

We watched each other warily for several minutes, in which time tense silence pervaded the quaint, deteriorating cottage. I heard the scraping of mouse's feet against the weather-worn floorboards and winced at the squeaking of the walls as I kicked up my leg and rested most of weight against it. I let my temporary-neutral foe keep Anne's knife, (It probably wouldn't take much to get it back.) but my eyes never once left him. Likewise, he scrutinized me with a mixture of bemusement and cynically.

Finally, he chuckled. "Alright, I've got to give you credit." He tucked the knife in his belt (he actually did have one) and crossed his arms, shaking his head and cackling with disbelief. "I've been standing here, trying to get rid of you for the past..." He shot a quick look at his wrist where a digital watch was velcro-ed. "...six minutes and you haven't even flinched. It's admirable, really. They must have debriefed you pretty well for you to be _this_ immune."

I blinked. He voice dripped with self-praise and grudging admiration, but I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Did he know I was on a quest for Camp Half-Blood? If so, he was sadly mistaken. I knew absolutely zero about him. I was tempted to flip through the file to see if I saw his face, but I'd studied that envelope closer than I had when I was trying for an "A" in Fifth Grade English. If this guy had been in it, I'd have recognized him on sight.

I decided it best, however, to humor him. "I got by," I nodded, rolling my shoulders and adopting my classic bad-boy routine. I paused, suddenly realizing I was digging myself a hole too deep to haul my ass back out of. If I convinced him I knew every one of his secrets and how to counteract his apparently ingenious moves, I wouldn't know what I was up against. So I played a hunch. "What'd you do to piss 'em off so bad, huh?"

He narrowed his eyes and pulled up a rotten wooden chair. As he sat down, he said incredulously, "They didn't tell you? Well, that's a bit surprising. But, I guess, being a self-respecting operative, you were just following orders. Am I right?"

I hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat before answering, "Spot on. So what's the deal?"

But he was already on his feet and pacing angrily, flailing his arms about irately. "I don't get what it is with you people. Doesn't everyone want the truth? Doesn't everyone want to _know_ they're doing something just instead of just saluting the Boss and marching off for business? Why is _everyone_ so fucking blind?" He whirled on me. "Did you ask them _once_ what they wanted with me or did you just sign your John Hancock and get the Tartarus out of there? I can't blame you for wanting to spend as little time with those cutthroats as possible, but didn't you feel even the slightest curiosity to find out _why_ I was on death row?"

His ranting befuddled me and I wasn't sure how to respond. Finally, I just babbled, "Never even crossed my mind."

He scoffed like it was expected. "I don't know what it is about that place. It's like you sign up and the next thing you know you're a mindless whelp carried along in the crowd. I was like that, too. At least until they gave me the file and gun to shoot a nine-year-old girl in the head."

I faltered. Well, I guess I knew what kind of a man I was talking to. A murderer who killed a little girl. "W-what?"

His lips twitched up into a bitter smile. "Yeah," He took a long stride toward me, but I backed away. The pack was still slung on my shoulder, and inside it was the gun I'd taken from Anne's old partner...months ago. I couldn't remember quite how long had passed. A little bit over two months at least. Gods, time flew by. But I was ready to draw and fire it if this lunatic got too riled up. "They were absolutely livid when I told them no. Started screaming at me, telling me I either killed her or died in her stead. So I shot the pudgy bastard in charge and ran out of there. They've been sending operatives like you after me for three years now. Not one of them has gotten me yet. Most run away as soon as they see me."

He grabbed my wrist and stilled it so I couldn't go for the gun. Then he yanked my pack and tossed it against the wall with a loud thud. The last of defenses fell to the ground. I struggled to loosen his hold, but it was iron-tight. My left hand was free, but I couldn't reach across for Riptide and I had the feeling even if I punched me as hard as I could, it wouldn't get me out of there.

That's when I felt it. The debilitating hindrance that I'd been evading for four years strong washed over me like acid water; cold and bitter and painful. My breath picked up and I felt the overwhelming urge to just run. No particular reason or direction, either; my instincts were screaming at me to hit the road and never look back. My nerves were frayed. I felt jittery, uncertain, like a hunted prey animal. Adrenaline pumped into my veins, giving me all the strength I needed to fight, but I was immobilized by fear.

I looked into my attacker's eyes and felt the world fall away, leaving nothing but death and ruin and Hera laughing as Camp Half-Blood burned.

I shoved him off of me and flattened myself against the wall, previous composure forgotten. I swallowed, but my throat was drier than when I had the first nightmare at Camp. "You want to you who I am?" I croaked incredulously. His eyes shown with a mixture of melancholy expectation and sympathy. "How about you? I don't scare. Ever. And suddenly all you have to do is grab my wrist and I can't breathe? No, not who are you. _What_ are you?"

He had the nerve to look insulted. "You don't let yourself get scared easily, do you?" I gritted my teeth and shook my head. "You should. You can't get over phobias if you don't face them."

"Oh, and you're an expert?" I demanded, reaching into my pocket and fingering Riptide. I wasn't going to draw on him just yet, but I was more than ready to cut off his head and start sprinting the opposite way in case his death created a horrible chain reaction of some kind.

"Actually," he said calmly. He stepped back and let me recollect myself. He waited patiently as I brought my breathing under control and stopped the tremors ransacking my traumatized body. "I'm a son of Phobos. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one who isn't clinically insane. I'm sorry about doing that to you. I realized too late that you were lying about working for The Organization. They're hunting you too?"

Now that he wasn't ranting, he sounded almost reasonable. So far, I had seen three parts of this guy; the merciless killer, the enraged ranter, and the sympathetic friend. I wasn't sure which scared me the most. "I don't know what you're talking about." I spat, shrugging off my insecurities and straightening up. "But you're right. I don't know who you worked for and I definitely never worked for them myself. What's The Organization?"

He sighed. "I should probably introduce myself," he said unexpectedly and thrust out his hand. "My name is Joe Yule. Yours?"

Alright, it's official. Cool, level-headed friend-guy was a lot scarier than anything else. "You can call me Eric," I said shortly, staring pointedly at his hand until he lowered it. I wasn't running the chance of feeling that way again.

"I promise I won't do that again. I can usually control it pretty well."

"I don't care." I said quickly, shrinking away when he took the smallest step toward me. An idea was beginning to percolate in my head, and it was sounding a lot more sensible than my other predictions. And until I knew for sure whether this guy fell into the ally or enemy category, I wasn't going to get too close.

Joe pursed his lips and eyed me carefully. "You're good at suppressing that fear." he complimented. But coming from him, it didn't sound like a compliment as much as it did those times when Chiron walked up to me and noted something about my form. Like I had good technique, but it was missing something. That tone always made me subconscious. It had when I was a kid, when I was a teen, and it still grated on my nerves. But I'd also learned not to show it.

I walked around him and pushed myself up on a window sill, far enough away that I was confident I couldn't get caught off guard so long as I stayed alert. I leaned against the frame and crossed my arms, kicking up my feet. I balanced precariously for a moment, unsteady on the narrow surface area I had to work with, but I levelled out and relaxed. "I've had a lot of practice," I told him. "Probably part of the reason I'm so 'immune' to you."

"Nobody's immune," he pointed out. "Some have higher thresholds, others are really good at hiding it. I'm fairly sure you're just damn good at lying to yourself and that's why you didn't feel anything." He started walking toward me, but I made a noise in my throat and held out my hand. I nodded toward his vacated chair, and he obediently sat down.

"You're right about one thing," I confirmed. "I'm a good liar. Had you fooled for a couple, didn't I?" He nodded. "But I wasn't lying to myself. I don't scare, and when I do, it's because of some wierd, twisted magic resurfacing old problems that I've already come to terms with."

"Oh really?" he shot back, leaning forward like he was intrigued. "So you've got no worries? No fears of any kind not magically induced?" I might've wanted to stab him for that knowing expression, but I nodded anyway. He laughed and sagged in his chair. "How the mighty have fallen," he mused aloud, shaking his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Never mind. I will never understand people nowadays."

He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. "I asked you about The Organization." I remembered suddenly, straightening up.

Joe faltered and stared at me. "Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. It's a bunch of demigods hired to kill various targets. Most of them are minor kids with one of the lesser known gods as their parents. And they're usually the most dangerous."

"Like you," I noted, tensing when he took a step forward. I swung my legs back out the window, ready to bolt, when I felt pain race up my spine and through my body. Someone was holding a knife to my back.

"And me."

**I feel so evil for doing this to you guys. Sorry it took me a while to write this. I think Percy is a little OOC here, but then again, Joe has that effect on people.**

**You met Joe! I want your opinions on him. I'm serious, too. It will affect later plot development. **

**For those of you who have forgotten the prophecy and don't feel like backtracking, here it is:**

**You shall embark despite the goddess' threat**

**and in retribution be forced to forget.**

**The secrets you seek lie hidden below.**

**Thwart the attempts of hope's ancient foe.**

**But fail in the purpose you set to fulfill,**

**the daughter of lies succeed in her kill.**

**I'm rather proud of that rhyme, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, I have to rewrite Siren's Song's prophecy, but I have the rest of this and Fire-Sea Pact to do it. **

**You can probably guess who our newest introduction is. Technically, you've already met her. Just not in person. But I love her. **

**Let the reviews begin.**


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Unwelcome Visitations

Pain rocketed through me, spreading through every fiber of my being until I felt nothing but all-encompassing agony. Vaguely, I remember my knees buckling and the hard, ruthless ground pressing against them when I collasped, heard the snapping of a twig - or maybe two or three - under the weight of either myself or the nameless individual who held my life in thrall.

I lurched forward, a scream tearing through clenched teeth, and tried to force my eyes open. Red blotted my vision, splotches of crimson staining the edges as I clung to the windowsill, feeling pieces of wood break off. Were it not for my invincibility, the splinters would have shredded my hands. As it stood, I had worse things to worry about than the inability of rotting organic material to injure me.

Booted footsteps echoed through my mind like drumbeats, each one measured and leisurely. I bowed my head in submission, muscles straining in pain. Whoever stood behind me, holding a knife against the small of my back, would not hesitate to kill me if it suited their purposes. It just didn't yet. And I had a nagging suspicion who it was.

"Anne," Joe's voice punctured the silence of the woods like a knife. "It's been too long."

Some of the pressure on my back lessened, likely indication of Anne's grip on the grip slackening. "Joe Yule," she clacked her tongue disapprovingly, her usual bemused tone hiding an underlying contempt. I imagined her elegant features twisted into a scowl, lengthened her brown locks, and intensified my memory of her like-colored eyes in my mind, giving me a vivid depiction of how I believed the fight played out above me.

The pressure on my back shifted and I heard twigs giving way to my right. Anne advanced toward the window, where I imagined Joe was framed. "If it isn't the epitome of fearful cowardice, come to torment me once more. We've missed you, partner." That characteristic smirk across her face, followed by a flick of the hips as she leaned against the sill, deliberately exaggerating her bosom, evidenced by further decrease of the imminent threat on my life.

Wood cracked; definitely not twigs. Joe leaned against the wall and it was giving way. "You and everyone else know why I left, McCartney. I don't regret it."

Anne laughed, her mirth seared around the edges with bitterness and restraint. "Of course you don't. You know, for the son of one of the most dishonorable gods, you sure have a strong sense of duty. For the other side," Anne antagonized. Pushing off the way, as more sounds of strained wood reached my ears. "What are you doing traveling with this scumbag." A flick of the eyes in my direction as she pushed harder against my heel. I winced, the pain now becoming status-quo and easier to deal with. Not less painful, just easier.

"Bad luck of crossing paths in the middle of the woods. He's a quester from Charlie-Hotel-Bravo." I frowned, confusion dulled by the pain. What had he said? Was he speaking code?

Anne exhaled in an "Aw" sound. "I see." She retracted the knife and kicked me precisely where she held my life in check milliseconds before. I roared in pain, doubling over, releasing the window and feeling the twigs and everything else under my palms.

Something played with the edges of my failing consciousness. I knew it had to do with Anne, but I wasn't sure what. Maybe her strange behavior that she hadn't revealed once during the time I'd known her, albeit my time with the real her was short and bloody. If that had even been the real her. I would not be surprised if that, too, had been an act.

It should be taken into consideration that this clear-headed commentary on my surroundings arose later on in time, when I had the time and safety to think that way. At the time, my most intelligent thought was: _owthatfuckinghurts!_

Suddenly, the knife disappeared. At least, it no longer pressed against my back and nothing replaced it. Slowly, my thought processes cleared. I drew a small amount from the moist ground - there must have been a recent rain - and let it coat my hand. It drained me of some energy, but it also replenished significantly more. Panting, I waited for my chance.

I watched Anne out of the corner of my eye and noticed that my mental assessment of her hair length had been way off - she'd chopped it down to above her ears now, making her look male if looked at from behind. But her strictly feminine facial structure could be mistaken for nothing but. Still partially dazed over from pain, I remembered how that contradicted something she had said to me while we were "dating": I'm not a big fan of short hair. Doesn't give guys anything to hang on to.

My ex held her knife - a narrow blade with an hour-glass shaped hilt - to Joe's neck and smiled. "You never cease to annoy me, you know that?" Malevolence twinkled in her eyes. She tilted the tip so it would cut just under his chin and dragged it across. It wasn't lethal, but I could tell Joe fought to hide his pain, face frozen in indifference. "The Organization wants blood, Joe. They want your blood. Surely you've seen Jessica more than once."

He nodded, face still unmoving. The dagger continued to cut his chin, and when Anne ran out of room, she started a new red line.

"Everyone's very worried about what you've been doing. Who you've been talking to. It's all they can think about, really." She drew a vertial lines between her two cuts. Joe remained impassive and didn't speak. "Kind of annoying, their insistence. I told them you weren't a problem, that you'd never go to big cities to alert anyone about our Organization. But they wouldn't listen. Kept sending field agents out again and again for you. All for the same purpose; kill Joe Yule."

Realizing Joe's danger, I pushed myself to my feet. My legs trembled, arms fatigued as they fought to sustain my weight for longer than two seconds. Noise followed every movement, and Joe and Anne watched me warily as I rose. "Don't listen to her," I said, raising four eyebrows. The puzzle pieces started falling into place as I stood in front of Anne, chest bared. With difficulty, I contorted myself into knowledgable intimidation. Anne's eyes darkened with an emotion I didn't recognize. I hoped it was fear. "She's after me."

Anne laughed. "Well, Eric, don't you have a big sense of your own importance. What makes you think I'm after you? Unless you've forgotten how sour our last deal ran?"

I grinned. "If not me, then why are you here?"

Anne's smirk wavered. "I've got business farther south."

I wondered if Annabeth had indirectly rubbed off on me, because the minute she said that I knew where she was headed. And instead of blurting it out for the gratification of seeing the dumbfounded look on her face, I held my tongue and decided it was better to let her lead the way.

But then the prophecy dawned on me again. _The daughter of lies succeed in her kill_. Anne was here to kill me. The army was a secondary goal, but I was her target. Had been for two years. And the Fates had already measured my string and determined when it would be cut - whether it was today or in three weeks, it didn't matter. It would be soon, and Anne would deliver the fatal blow, no matter how hard I fought.

But could Fate be averted? If I killed Anne right now, drew Riptide and plunged through her heart, would that save me? She wouldn't be alive to kill me, nor would she be to kill anyone else. It wouldn't be a selfish deed; I could cicumvent dozens of unfair deaths in the future. Change the course of history. We made our own destinies, right? It was up to us. And I decided Anne was better six feet under.

My hand sunk into my pocket and I fished out Riptide, uncapping it fluidly as it morphed into a three-foot sword. Anne saw the motion, recognized my retrieval of my sword, and fell backward as I swept at her head. She tumbled away and sprinting into the woods, but I pursued.

I didn't know if Joe followed or not, but I didn't care. I raced through the foliage after my ex, blood on my mind and vengeance in my heart. I wanted her to suffer. Just killing her was too merciful, too kind. I needed to make her pay for every death she caused, ever meticulous lie she fed to people like candy. Anne McCartney was going to see a very living Fields of Punishment before she was ever eligible for Judgment herself.

I called her name, but she didn't stop, leaping over a fallen trunk with ease. I tumbled over it, catching myself against a tree, and quickly rose to my feet to continue after her.

Adrenaline pumped furiously through my veins, air coming out in brief puffs as I spent every scrap of energy I had on catching her. I kept her in sight, always one step behind her, but every turn it was shorter step. I started anticipating her moves, cutting her off, only to have her dart off the opposite direction and restart the chase. Exhilaration filled me and I laughed, somewhat mad in my rage and determination. Images of Anne begging for death flickered across my mind's eye, and I didn't care if it was the Torturer mangling my thoughts. I wanted her to pay.

Anne slid down a tree, nearly getting away toward a chainlink fence, but I was too close. Propelling my left foot from the fallen trunk, I flew through the air, arms outstretched to grab her and pull back down. My arms wrapped around her sides and we tumbled as one, Anne beneath me.

Anne broke my fall. I heard her exhale sharply and my face slammed into the dirt above her right shoulder. I spit out leaves as Anne thrashed frantically underneath me, managing a punch in my gut. The air left my lungs in a rush when her fist connected with my diaphram and she shoved me onto my side, scrambling toward her fallen dagger.

I recovered too quickly for her to reach it. Grabbing her ankle and twisting it left, and dragged her back. Anne's fingers raked the ground and she screamed in pain and frustration. "Damn you, Eric!" she cried, rolled over to claw at my face. I dodged the attack and pinned her arms to above her head, stradling her sides. She continued to buck against me, moaning halfheartedly.

"Give up, Anne!" I yelled, leaning down on top of her. I stared into her gold-rimmed eyes contemptuously. "I win!"

Then Anne did something I never saw coming. She kissed me, full on the mouth and with more passion and meaningfulness than she ever had before. I felt the effects of her lips all the way down to my toes like tiny lightning strikes through my body, but it had none of the magic it once possessed. Now it was nothing more than carnal desire and underhanded trickery.

I tore my mouth away, spitting up her taste like it was snake venom. I didn't loosen my grip on her arms. "Don't even," I growled. "I'm over you."

Anne grinned. "Yes," she teased, glancing down at our position. "You are."

I felt my body react to her closeness and jerked away, disgusted with myself for feeling even the faintest attraction toward the little bitch. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was only my body weight holding her down, and the second I shifted, she kneed me between the legs and rolled back over, grasping her knife in her hands.

I jumped to my feet and drew Riptide before she whirled around with knife drawn and body propped against her left arm. Her vein pulsed underneath my swordtip, arm extended as though she still intended to fight. But my blade immobilized her.

Twigs and branches snapped as someone crashed through the foliage the same way I'd come. I glanced up to see Joe, gun out and ready, emerge from the underbush. He opened his mouth when he saw me, but then his eyes darted down to the ground. He flashed me a respecting smile and held up his arms. "All yours."

I looked back toward my homicidal ex-fiance. Her black hair surrounded her head like a puddle of oil, golden eyes twinkling in the narrow raws of light streaming from above. Riptide reflected in her pupils. Her traveller's clothes were disheveled and messy, hanging off of her body at irregular angles. Her face was scraped up from running through bramble, and there were bags under her eyes.

I tightened my grip on the hilt, ready to thrust downward and end my torment. I wouldn't have to glance over my shoulder anymore to make sure there wasn't a familiar demigod following me. The prophecy would be circumvented. I'd survive this quest and go on to thwart Hera some other way. I might achieve Elysium Fields someday in the distant future, free of the Torturer's control. All I had to do was plunge my sword through her neck, and it was over.

But I hesitated. Lying as she was, looking as she did, she didn't resemble the cleanly maniac I'd uncovered in City Hall two years ago. She looked like Emily Richardson, the spunky daughter of Demeter I fell in love with. How do you kill the woman you love? How do you kill any woman?

I couldn't have that blood on my hands. People had died under my command, but never by my hand. If I ended her life, however fair it might have been in the scope of things, all I was doing was bowing to her level. She'd die with a smile on her face, knowing her death had corrupted a hero.

I pulled the sword away from her throat and staggered back. Anne's eyes lit up knowingly, as she expected my reaction. "Get out," I told her. "Leave. Now. You're not worth the bloodshed."

Anne smiled, but it wasn't in relief. She pushed herself to her feet and picked up her knife, but I cleared my throat. "Leave it," I ordered. Anne glanced over her shoulder, still bent over, and her smirk widened. She straightened and jogged into the trees, disappearing into the foliage.

A second later, Joe pushed me back. "Are you crazy?" he roared. "You had her dead to rights! You could've killed a monster, and you let her go!"

I braced myself against a tree and avoided his eyes. "She isn't a monster. Monsters don't have souls."

Joe threw his head back and laughed, turning around slightly only to whip around and punch me in the gut. I doubled over, and his fist forced my jaw back up. "You think so? I've got news for you; monsters are capable of more compassion than she is. She'll wind up in the Fields of Punishment one way or another. All you did was delay the inevitable."

I straightened, forcing my breaths to be even and controlled. "So what if I did?" I met his eyes now, which burned with uncontained rage. Hatred lit them in the back as if torches were ignited. "I'm not judge, jury and executioner. I don't have a right to kill people."

"You kill monsters," Joe countered.

I averted my eyes again, focusing on the ground. "That's different."

"How?" he demanded. "Because there isn't red stuff on your hands after you kill a monster? Maybe you'd rather have a gun."

"I don't kill people!" I yelled, my voice rapidly filtering into nothingness through the trees.

Joe's eyes flashed. "Yeah," he agreed. "But Anne McCartney does."

He punched me across the jaw and my vision darkened with black spots. I heard footsteps fading into silence, and when my vision cleared, Joe was gone.

**There you go. The actual 26th chapter the way it was supposed to play out and not the half-assed garbage my evil twin's evilest evil twin's even eviler evil twin posted as an excuse for a ridiculous hiatus. **

**This chapter was murder to write until I posted the piece of crap from before, and then it came like a waterfall. So I'm replacing it with something miles better. Truthfully, this is one of my better pieces of writing so far. I really like Percy's nightmare, the chapter following that, and this one. It really sets the scene for what happens from here on out. I think it paints a better picture of Joe, too - I made him seen like a manic-depressive lunatic last time, and he does have insecurities, but re-reading it I noticed the ranting, albeit in character, did a poor portrayal of who he is. He might not have as much of a role in this chapter as he did in the last one, but it gives him a better...there-ness.**

**By the way, remember I while ago when I ran a bunch of titles by you guys? I took your suggestions into account and changed them. They are as follows:**

**Series #1: The Scared Hero Trilogy**

** -Book #1: The Forgotten Fear**

** -Book #2: The Fiery Fiends**

** -Book #3: The Siren's Song**

**Series #2: The Empty Thrones Trilogy**

** -Book #1: The Empty Sea**

** -Book #2: The Empty Forge**

** -Book #3: The Empty Prophecy**

**Series #3: The Earthly Conflict**

** -Book #1: The Earthly Return**

** -Book #2: The Earthly Unity**

** -Book #3: The Earthly Endeavor**

**All of these books are interconnected and play directly into each, despite whatever time lapses might occur. Intimate knowledge with the Heroes of Olympus books will be required for you guys to continue reading this series. If nothing else, at least the Lost Hero. I'd advise more than that, and in a few chapters you'll miss a deliberate plot tool of mine if you haven't read The Son of Neptune, but it isn't necessary until The Earthly Return. I want you to read Mark of Athena and House of Hades (when it comes out) and everything else, but you don't need 3+ to read this. I stray from the beaten path.**

**The Empty Thrones is a heavy-hitting series. I'm currently writing some rough sketches of those chapters, and keeping so much as one thing light-hearted is seriously taxing. There are several tear-inducing bits throughout those that make me want to cry from coming up with them and if I write it correctly, should induce tears in my readers. I'll start introducing kleenex warnings at the beginning of sad chapters. (The first one is in this.)**

**I think that covers everything. Oh, and by the way, Riordan is trolling us. He has a crossover short story between Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles being released in the back of the May Edition of Serpent's Shadow. PM me for more details.**

**-thein273**


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven  
What Doesn't Bode Well...

Waking up after coming down from an adrenaline high is probably ten times worse than waking up with a hangover.

I exhibited all the same symptoms - nausea, vertigo, headache, delayed reaction timing - but I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol. Therefore, I would never go to sleep before completely coming off of a fight.

I thought all of this _before_ I opened my eyes to the startling glare of morning filtering through the overhanging branches. The sunlight pierced my eyelids like daggers and I cursed, rolling over to shield my retinas from the abuse. In the process, I crushed a bunch of twigs and discovered a noise-sensitivity the likes of which I had never experienced before. Fighting to remember the events of the previous day - Was it the same one? - I shoved myself to my feet and cast my gaze over the ground, searching for my belongings. I found nothing, recollection providing a vague understanding of which road to follow to find my valuables. If they were even still there; after recalling the harshness of Joe's words last night, I wouldn't be surprised if he swung back to the hut we'd met in and stolen all of my things.

It took a lot of doubling back and questioning the forks in the road, but eventually the dilapidated dwelling came into view. I jogged toward it, hand hovering over my pocket. In the two hours or so it took to track down this place, my headache had died down to a dull throb and I could think clearly. I'd dealt with worse.

Predictably, there was no sign of Joe anywhere in the cabin. His things were whisked away, as I'd suspected. But to my pleasant alarm, my belongings were all nestled together in the corner - knife, gun, magazine, and pack complete with everything I'd come here with, and a suspicious copious amount more food than I recalled having - under a fallen beam. There was a note in Ancient Greek lying on top of them: _If you actually came back here, you're an idiot._ Somehow I knew it was Joe's handwriting.

Ignoring the slur, I gathered up my things, sheathing my knife, putting the magazine back in the gun and the gun back in my pack, and swung it over my shoulder. I rolled my shoulders back, knowing in spite of my watchlessness my time was running out. I had to get to Brodnax soon, before Anne beat me to it and gave the monsters the exact location of Camp Half-Blood. Which I knew she could. After all, I was the one who told her where to look.

I kicked down the door and broke into a measured run out of the woods, hoping to hitchhike the rest of the way to Virginia.

* * *

Three hours later, my arm was tired from holding it out into the road and my patience was up. I shouted at passing drivers, all but begging them for a lift.

"Come on!" I screamed, throwing my arms out in exasperation like every movie in Hollywood. Little cars, giant trucks, semis, and SUV's all treated me the same: _Oh look, honey. There's a kid over there who looks like the undead. We ought to help him... Not!__  
_

Alright, to be fair, I would have done the same thing in their shoes. But I'm on the receiving end of the refusals, and I am _not_ a serial killer. I wasn't going to eat their kids and feed them to my tribe of cannibals. Give me a fucking ride!

Finally, I sagged into defeat, the hours dragging on into the night. As the sun set, I just gave up entirely and plopped down by the side of the road to eat something. I leaned against the car rail and bit into my package of beef jerky, deciding I had a right to indulge.

Ironically, it wasn't long after I'd ripped off the first chunk from the dried meat that a familiar semi pulled up beside me and rolled down the window. "Need a lift again already, stranger?"

I gaped at the bearded driver, shocked beyond words. "You - You're... But...?" I swallowed and shook my head, positive I was hallucinating. "What are you doing here?"

The trucker smiled good-naturedly, and a beam that had once looked creepy to me was now the smirk of an angel. "Same thing you are, likely. Travelling. Really, James, you oughta' buy a car or sumthin'."

I used the railing to push myself up onto my feet and gathered up my belongings, hastily shoving the gun deeper into the recesses of my pack before he saw it. I walked over to the open window and leaned against the door, shaking my head in disbelief. "Sorry I ditched you before, but I had a deadline to meet in the woods and I wasn't sure how you'd take it." It was yet another one of my "brilliant" lies, but my old ride didn't seem to mind. I suspected he knew I was a fluent con, but he just had too big a heart to care. It was an admirable trait, but it was also deadly.

"A deadline in the woods, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Who's the lucky lady?"

I blushed scarlet, realizing the only way I could explain myself was to go with his suggestion. "Shapely brunette," I managed quietly. "High school sweethearts."

"Cute," he summarized, unlocking the door. I opened it and climbed in, hauling my things with me. "Well, we are ya headed, Jimmy?"

"Don't call me Jimmy," I snapped, remembering the false name I'd given him. "It's James. Just James." He held up his hands and turned the key, rumbling back onto the freeway. "And I'm after Virginia." I realized I'd adopted some of his accent and shuddered, recalling yet another reason why I'd left him at the truck stop.

"Where in?"

"Brodnax. You probably wouldn't - "

But my trucker friend cut me off with a sharp punch to the shoulder. It hurt. "No kiddin'? You're off to the ole' codger's wedding too? Friend of the bride?"

"Actually," I grumbled, rubbing my shoulder. "My cousin lives there. Come down with something fierce. My aunt wants me over there for her last few days."

The trucker's expression turned sympathetic and he clapped me on the back. "Sorry to hear that, friend. What's she got?"

I blurted the first thing that came to mind, because I'd seen a "Send money to Uganda" sign a few days before. "Ebola."

He swerved the car. "No shit?" he roared, his accent forgotten. "_Ceasari Futatrix! _Fucking Ebola. I'm turning this godsdamned thing around right fucking now before Red drags into a fucking epidemic, that son of a hy - " He started to live up to his promise but I steadied the steering wheel and looked him square in the eyes, letting the fact he'd just cursed in Latin vanish from my mind.

"It isn't contagious. It's, uh, a mutated strain. Her dad's a pathologist who studies it and she caught it from him. The petri dishes, I mean. He's dead now." It was a hasty, stupid lie that Annabeth would have murdered me for using, but I didn't care. So long as it calmed him down and got me to where I needed to go. "It's under control. No mutating. Safe."

He looked uncertain. "Crazy ass son of a bitch you are, going back there. What if everybody dies? Heroic freak. Gods, everyone is insane." His peculiar Southern accent was gone. It sounded closer to how I remembered Annabeth sounded right after she got to Camp from California. She didn't have the accent anymore, but his lisp reminded me of that. I frowned, wondering what was up with the sudden shift in vocal properties. But I didn't say anything.

At least, until his Latin curses and polytheistic profanities reoccurred to me. "What did you say before?"

"You're nutters, son," he reminded, but he held the course on the road and didn't turn back. His accent was back, which only made my paranoia worse.

My hand clenched over the inner door locking mechanism, ready to jump out of a moving vehicle if I had to. "No," I said carefully, eyeing him with unease. He focused on the road, which was a change. He was hiding something. "Before that. You cursed. In another langue."

He glanced at me fearfully, his brown eyes alight with indecision. Then he chuckled falsely and ran a shaky hand through his bushy red hair. "Ya know, kiddo?" he said, fighting to maintain his accent. "Ya worry me sumtimes, talking about weird stuff like ya do. Always on about changing lanes or being followed by a car. Kinda paranoid-like, really."

My lip curled and I snapped. "Pull over," I ordered. He looked at me in alarm and opened his mouth to argue, but I didn't let him. I turned off his radio and glared at him pointedly. "Pull over now or I jump out of this moving car."

His eyes flashed manically and he hastily obliged. Once he pulled the key out of the ignition and turned to me, I held Anne's knife at his throat. He threw his hands up in surrender. "I know you're in on the whole Greek gods thing," I told him impatiently. His eyes widened.

"Greek gods?" he echoed, but I drove the blade deeper into his throat.

"No more lies," I growled. "You're not a Southerner. You're from California. I recognize that accent - the one you use when you're scared for your life - and you can't fool me. You cursed in Latin. Normal people don't do that."

He laughed nervously. "Okay, so maybe I lay the act on a little thick. But I don't know what you're talking about Greek gods for. They don't exist."

I rolled my eyes. "You cursed. _In Latin_. I might not be fluent, but I know that stupid language when I hear it. And the whole _Ceasari_ thing was kind of a dead giveaway." Before he could cut in again, I continued, "And you said 'gods.' Not in the possessive sense, as in plural. More than one. Most people, even if they're atheist, say 'god.' One. Not two. Not three. Not twelve. So spit it out. Who are you, where do you come from, and what are you?"

He stared at me in horror for a second, but then he sighed. The next thing I knew, I had my own knife leveled at my throat. "I'm going to explain things to you," he told me simply, his accent natural and lilting as he spoke. When he behaved normally, his voice was more than normal. It was downright charismatic. "And you're not going to talk unless I ask you a question. Got it, kid?"

I nodded, eyeing the knife nervously.

"Good. The reason I've got a weird is because I'm usually stationed in Texas to ferry demigods to Camp. I had to come up North on a quest for Lupa, then my friend, Tommy, sends me an eagle saying he's getting married in Brodnax. So I headed back that way. The reason why I doubled back is because I knew you were a demigod and wanted to get you to Brodnax where he could handle you. It would set me a few days back and I'd miss his wedding because of the quest, but it was worth it. I thought. Then you ditch me and all I can think of is: _Shit. He got eaten. Reyna's gonna kill me_. Then I saw you on the side of the road and thought: _Shit. He's alive. He's got to powerful_. So I gave you a ride. Then you start talking about Brodnax and I got suspicious, so I asked a couple more questions. Then you come out with an Ebola outbreak like the freaking movie. What am I supposed to do? Keep cool? My best friend is now in the middle of something that makes Anthrax look tame. How did you expect me to react."

I glared at him. "You're an idiot," I stated simply. "The Ebola thing was a complete lie. A bad lie. And you fell for it. Don't blame me because you're gullible." I swatted the knife away from my throat in annoyance. "And you didn't answer about half of my questions. Hades, you didn't answer any." I crossed my arms and kicked up a foot on the seat with some serious attitude. "So I will repeat, because your pea-sized-probably-an-Ares-brain probably doesn't remember: Who are you, where did you come from, and _what_ are you?"

He seemed to roll that one around in his mouth for a while before sighing. "My name is Julian Matthews. My father is Apollo, thank you very much. I'm originally from Oklahoma, but I was taken away when I was six, so I don't really remember it. I grew up in Camp Jupiter. After my tenth year of service to the legion, I got to retire. I had all these friends, and we decided to pitch in outside of Camp all over the country. I went to Texas kind of a middle ground, Tommy went to Virginia for the unlucky bastards born in the East, Edward lives in Kentucky, Phillip is in... But you don't care about that, do you?"

I shook my head.

"You're a tough crowd, you know that, right?" He groaned. "Anyway, you should have been taken years ago. I mean, did you say you were in your twenties?"

"Twenty-one," I said tersely.

He nodded. "Yeah, you should be dead. That's what I can't figure. You're obviously strong and smart, 'cuz you sniffed me out. You should have been killed by now. Oh, and is your name even James?"

"Yes," I lied easily. "That was true."

"Last name?"

"How about you visit Kronos instead?"

He sobered instantly. "And that's another thing. You call everything weird names. Who the fuck in Hades?"

I gaped at him. "You apparently were abducted and lived under a rock," I informed him. "It doesn't matter who you are, everyone knows Hades is the god of the underworld."

He rolled his eyes expressively. "Well, aren't you deluded. The god of the Underworld is Pluto, moron. And Kronos? Who calls Saturn Kronos?"

I scowled at him. "Saturn?"

He buried his head in his hands. "Titan of time. Almighty daddy of the gods. Guy who cannibalized his own kids."

I shook my head and felt a headache coming on. "You're confusing the heck out of me," I told him irately, not looking at him.

"Ditto," he groaned, turning the key again and starting down the highway. "How about we sort this out in Brodnax?"

I looked up at him through blurred vision. "Pull over." Instantly, nausea and vertigo assaulted me, and even sitting down, I couldn't stay conscious.

"What? But we just - "

"Now!"

**I totally didn't expect the trucker to assume this role, but okay, whatever. He serves a good purpose. So you've got a little bit more about the situation in Brodnax, and I'm sure a lot of you have already figured out what's up with Julian. Anyone got a guess as to what's the matter with Percy?**


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

...Do I Have to Finish?

Julian jerked the steering wheel over in alarm and we swerved off the road. Had anyone been behind us, there would have been a cataclysmic crash; but luckily, we were the only ones driving down I85.

No sooner had I pushed the door open than a fountain of bile emerged from my throat and I collapsed onto the ground. I felt the blood drain from my face, and the shaking I remember from the normal effects set in. I rolled over, staring up at the sky.

It was oddly beautiful. Clear blue with thin clouds assuming interesting as they passed through the air. I identified a pegasus and hippocampus while lying there, but then Julian stuck his ugly face in the view and the moment was ruined. "What the Pluto is wrong with you?" he demanded, grabbing me by the collar and attempting to haul me upright. I sat up for about three seconds before smacking into the ground. "What are you, an invalid? Sit up."

I glowered at me. "I might not have total control over my muscles, but that won't stop me from snapping your neck when I get my godsdamned antidote." I tried to roll over, but couldn't. The paralysis hadn't set in yet; technically, I could still move my limbs. My only problem was that "moving" them did not mean "controlling" them. It was more like having pudding for arms, and if you slosh it around enough it _might_ spill over the side. I groaned. "Look, you do know about sacrifices, right?"

"If you think I'm throwing my entrails into a fire for you..." Julian began dangerously, and I suppressed the urge to call up a tsunami to kill him.

"No," I snapped. "Food. Burning food for a god. Offer something to Hestia."

Julian scowled. "Hestia?"

I rolled my eyes. My vision started to blacken and my mind went blank. I fought to control enough of my mental faculties to coach this idiot. "Goddess of the hearth," I told him. I felt a tingling start in my toes, and knew very shortly I wasn't going to be able to speak. Apparently, despite the normalcy of this bout of poison, it had sped up. I typically had fifteen minutes before my body went numb. This hasn't been five.

Julian looked around desperately, then dashed into the woods. He didn't reemerge for several minutes, by which point my left leg was completely immobilized and my right was numb up to the knee. He ran out with an armload of wood and dropped it all on the ground. He started patting his pockets. "My pack," I grunted. He glanced down at me and nodded. Finally, something made it through that thick skull.

He dug through my belongings and held up my gun with a questioning expression. I rolled my eyes and he carefully set it down on the passenger seat. He scrambled to to ignite the lighter and held it out to the wood. "Just throw it in," I instructed, arching my back as the pain started to hit. The paralysis had spread through my right leg now, and agony was coursing through me fiercer than when Anne held the knife to my back. Darkness twinged the sides of my vision and I couldn't breathe.

The fire roared to life quicker than I expected. Julian raced back to the truck and brought out a MRE. I decided not to comment on it (partly because I couldn't speak coherently anymore). He threw it into the wood and I waited. I prayed desperately to Hestia, hoping beyond hope she'd hear me and come. Nothing happened.

Suddenly, the fire spiraled four feet into the air and a same girl stood there, feet shrouded in hot coals. With a smile, the caramel-haired seven-year-old glided over to me and touched my forehead. Without a word, she poured a vile of clear liquid down my throat. I regained control of my limbs and coherency in one fell swoop. Hestia rose as I sat up and nodded gratefully at her. "Thank you for the offering, Mr. Jackson. I would have come nonetheless, however."

I smiled. "Yeah. But the other Olympians require an offering and I don't figure to short-change you."

Hestia pressed her underdeveloped lips against my forehead, resting her hand on the back of my head. "Apollo did not lie when he told you there was a solution to your pain. I wish I could enlighten you, but the Fates will not permit it. They say we have chosen our path, and we must contend with the consequences."

I groaned and forced myself to my feet. Julian leaned against the truck, watching us in shock. I ignored him. "Do they also say I'm doomed to forever walk alone?"

Hestia's smile grew warmer and she helped me to my feet, just like a small, concerned child. I accepted her aid despite her size because I knew her divine powers strengthened her. I staggered to my feet. "Not exactly," she comforted with a squeeze on the arm. Then she vanished into smoke.

Julian gaped at the vacancy. He worked his jaw up and down as I gathered everything back into my bag and cracked my neck. I felt better than when I started. "Hestia and I are on better terms than I am with the rest of the gods."

"Better terms?" he echoed, blinking. "That's, like...a friendship."

I laughed. "I think to think so, yeah."

He started motioning stupidly. "But... How did you...?"

I just rolled my eyes and tossed the pack to the other side of the truck. "I'll drive to Brodnax. You can sleep."

He nodded dumbly and climbed in the passenger door. He said nothing the entire trip.

* * *

Dust flies up around the truck as we veer into a small, Wild-West looking town.

Alright, so it was closer to "Little House on the Prairie," but still. It was ridiculous. I swear, that thing with the small swinging doors was a saloon. There was a long wooden patio with porches placed sporadically in front of rickety shops with out-of-place modern T-shirts and jeans being displayed. When I woman walked in front of the car, I fully expected her to wear a bonnet and carry and woven basket of flowers or something. But she just wore a long blue skirt and white button-down, her longish gold hair tumbling down her shoulders. She carried a modern purse.

To summarize, Brodnax looked like 1800's America had collided head-first with the Twenty-First Century, and the result was a confused townspeople.

I rolled down the window and leaned out, calling to the woman. "Hey! Can you tell me where to park?"

She stopped and nearly tripped on her skirt, turning to me with her hand over her chest. Alright, we're seriously talking Laura Ingalls here. "What? Yes, of course." She pointed down an alley on Julian's side. "Down there. There's a parking lot behind the parlor."

I frowned. "Parlor?"

She nodded, then groaned. "Honestly, you city-types are all the same. You'd probably call it a bar."

"I knew that, I was just- You know what? Forget it. Thank you for your help."

With difficulty, I backed up, moved forward, and generally knocked lampposts down in my efforts to turn around. This was a foot community. They clearly did not welcome vehicles into their backwards village.

I remembered what the vanilla folder had said: _Population: 294._ No wonder it was so small. There weren't enough people here to fill the tip of a ballpoint pen. And a real ballpoint, not my sword. This was ridiculous.

I managed to work the truck into the tiny alley and parked it in one of the three parking spaces behind the parlor. And not because it was densely packed; because there were only _three parking spaces_. And we were the only ones there. Did no one in the city own a car?

I shut off the ignition and Julian immediately climbed out, jumping down with a soft _puff._ I rested my head back and ran my fingers through my hair before retrieving my pack from the backseat and hopping out. Julian looked smug, leaning against the bed of the truck. "What?" I demanded, irritated by his knowing expression.

"Nothing," he said innocently. "Just that, you know..."

"What?" I repeated, shrugging the pack higher on my shoulder. "I dare you."

Julian suddenly became interested in his shoes.

I marched off and swung the double doors in the back of the parlor open, storming in like I owned the place. I couldn't resist. I might as well play the part of the antagonistic outsider coming to a small town about to save everyone's lives while I'm here. "Bartender!" I barked. Eyes turned, scathing looks tracking me along the aisle. There were about twenty people in the bar, which was literally a tenth of the town's population.

An aging guy with a white beard looked up from cleaning a dirty glass. Unfortunately, the cloth was equally filthy. I could see spots of red peeking out from the caked on black. He smiled at me warmly. "I'm looking for Tommy," I said impatiently, leaning across the counter.

The bartender's welcoming expression hardened and he nodded behind me. I turned and saw a rather imposingly large man looming over me with his hands at his sides like he was Superman. Or rather, Goliath. "And you are?"

I gulped. "Eric," I said impulsively. Julian shot me a dirty look, but I ignored him. "I'm here with a friend of his." I jerked my head to Julian, and the big man turned. Instantly, his dark, brooding face turned light and jovial. He looked like St. Nick.

"Jules!" he exclaimed, wrapping my companion in a large, encompassing hug. Julian laughed and hugged him back, although he dealt with about a foot height difference. "Brother, how long has it been?"

Julian chuckled. "About ten years, old buddy. It's been too long."

Tommy beamed and clapped me on the back. "Well, any friend of Jules is a friend of mine. Come on, I'll introduce you to the missus."

I resisted. "Actually, we're not..." A very pointed elbow shut me up.

"Don't tell me we've already missed the wedding?" Julian protested as Tommy hauled us away. I couldn't get over the irony of this guy being named Tommy. "Honestly, Tom, that would simply be tragic."

Tommy shook his head. "Nope. Still three days away. I'm glad you could make it." We walked out into the square and Tommy dropped his voice to a whisper. "So, Eric, are you one of us?"

I couldn't resist. "I didn't know there were gangs in small towns."

Tommy stopped dead and whirled on Julian. "He isn't one of us?" he roared in a maintained whisper. "Who the hell is this guy?"

Julian arched an eyebrow. "Hell?" he echoed.

Tommy buried his face in his hands. "I've been undercover as a mortal for years, Jules. Things start to stick."

"Careful," Julian warned. I started to feel like a third party. "Dad might have to vaporize you if you get too free with the Christian profanities."

Tommy waved him off. "This coming from the guy who exclaims 'Holy Mother of God' every time someone mentions Sunday mass."

Julian tensed. "It's not my fault I was raised Christian. My mother was an idiot."

"Yeah, well-" I figured then was the time to intervene.

"Ladies, ladies," I cut in, placing on firm hand on both of their chests. I had to reach up for Tommy's. "And I am one of you. I've just had a very, very long couple of weeks and decided to have some fun."

"You're an ass," Tommy informed me.

I smiled and removed my hands from my solar plexus. "You're not the first one to point that out," I grinned.

"So is James or Eric your real name?" Julian demanded, crossing his arms.

I knotted my fingers in my hands and laughed nervously. "You caught that, huh?"

Julian nodded.

I shrugged. "Let's just say I'm both and go with that?" It came out as a question rather than a statement.

Julian scoffed. "Sure. Whatever. James/Eric."

"Let's stick to Eric for now," I snapped, then took a deep breath and calmed down. I turned to Tommy. "Alright, the way I understand it, there's a massive army of monsters massing just outside city limits, and you're probably their first stop."

"Army?" Tommy shook his head. "No. Felicia would have spotted them."

"Dude," Julian placed a hand on his shoulder. "Felicia's a mortal. She probably thinks they're a bunch of grazing cattle."

Tommy's expression turned to horror and he turned on his heel, running across the street. In a city, that would have been suicide, but here he didn't even run into anybody.

He burst through an unlocked door and called, "Sweetie? Sweetie? Felicia, dear, where are you?"

"In the kitchen!" a very feminine voice called back.

Tommy headed to the side and opened a large swinging door. A petite brunette turned to greet him with a peck on the cheek and a spoonful of soup. He made an approving sound and embraced her around the hips, but she swatted him. "Shame, Thomas. Dessert comes _after_ dinner."

I banged my head against the wall.

"Oh hello," the little woman greeted. I tried to erase the screensaver of how _exactly_ the two radically different sizes intended to go about sex from my mind and forced myself to meet Mrs. Tommy in the eyes. They were a pretty green color. "And you two are...?"

I opened my mouth, but Tommy cut me off, sweeping forward and motioning toward Julian. "This is Jules, our best man. I told you he would be coming." The wife nodded and looked at me pointedly. "And this is his cousin, Eric." He squeezed my shoulder in warning, as though I had to be told to lie.

"Will he be attending the wedding also?" she asked politely, completely disregarding my presence.

Tommy nodded. "Yes, dear. I was wondering if you saw anything interesting on one of your hunts."

Felicia scowled. I noticed a small tattoo are her neck, but didn't mention it. It nagged at me, though, and I fought to remember where I'd seen the bird with an arrow through it's heart before. "Nothing out of the ordinary," she said, returning to her supper. "By the way, do you remember the sister's boyfriend I warned you about?"

I played close attention to the word "warned," but Tommy didn't seem to care. "Yeah. What about him?"

She grinned. "He walked in while you were at the pub. Tyler! Tyler, dear, dinner's almost ready!"

I looked around at the scrambling a drowsy man. A familiar silhouette emerged from the shadows, dressed in nothing but sweat pants. His red hair caught the light, his dark eyes fixating on me.

"Hello again, Joe," I nodded. He said nothing.

Then he lunged under the table and I drew my gun.

**You have no idea how much I enjoyed writing this chapter. I hoped you chuckled a couple times too.**


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Heroism, As Per Usual, Sucks Balls

My first instinct when Joe drew the gun? Protect the mortal.

I tumbled in the direction of the kitchen, loosing a round in my arch-nemesis' direction as I barked at Felicia, "Get down!" Tommy and Julian didn't hesitate to comply, but the dumb mortal gawked at me as though I'd fallen out of space. A bullet grazed the cabinet to my right, and I narrowly dodged the debris.

Felicia's expression was so utterly dumbfounded it would have been funny if some unreasonably pissed off son of Phobos wasn't trying to blow my brains out over her wood floor. At first, I considered spelling out my order, only to realize the futility of it. Dyslexia plus talking-down to someone did not add up properly. Then Felicia's eyes narrowed on me, her lips pursing in an unattractive scowl. Great, so she was blaming _me_ for her trashed living room? By all means, ignore the nut job gunman firing rounds like there was no tomorrow across from me.

I looked away from the irritated pregnant woman just in time to dodge a hailstorm of lead coming down on me as Joe tumbled closer. My shirt would have better served as confetti after that, but my skin was undamaged, courtesy of invulnerability. As I came up from my roll, I redirected the barrel in Joe's general vicinity and squeezed the trigger. A grunt of pain puffed out my chest a bit.

Surprisingly, a massive couch took a large amount of punishment. The wood and upholstery were shredded, but I remained relatively safe behind it. Safe enough to dart my head over the top, take aim and Joe, and shoot. The bullet caught his shoulder, which would have been an accomplishment if I hadn't been aiming for his knee. Conversely, however, it was his right arm, and he seemed to find raising the gun difficult after that.

I leapt over the furniture and leveled the barrel at Joe's head, kicking his own pistol out of his hand and across the room. It skidded to a stop under Tommy's foot, who had, sometime during the gunfight, risen from his hiding spot behind the kitchen counter. I glanced at him, chest heaving, and we exchanged a nod. Tommy bent down, picked up the handgun, and aimed it at Joe's head.

Time slowed to a crawl. I stared at Joe, finger twitching anxiously over the trigger as I considered my options. Kill him like I hadn't the nerve to do to Anne, or give him the opportunity to explain himself. Once again, nausea swelled in my stomach at the mere thought of taking another life, but I forced that heroic tendency to the wayside while higher reasoning was shoved to the forefront. Joe was an ex-assassin, at least so he claimed, but I wasn't sure if his redemption was real or just a clever ploy to lull me into a false security so he could silence me in my sleep. And however conspiracy-theorist that might sound, after narrowly escaping death at the hands of Emily Richardson, my own fiance and a daughter of Apacte whose real name was Anne, I was willing to believe just about everything. Including hare-brained schemes that seemed far-fetched in even a movie.

Joe glared at me, and I could feel the waves of fear radiate from him like Arizonian heat. Before the terror could set in, though, I slammed the butt of my gun into his temple. It wasn't hard enough to really hurt him, or even knock him unconscious, but it distracted him enough for my mind to settle. The flashes of nightmare images hung with me a few seconds later, and it was only through deliberated breathing I managed to summon the willpower to quell them.

That's when I saw the mark on Joe's neck. A bird with an arrow through its heart. My mind snapped back to that stolen glimpse of Felicia's bare neck and Anne's vulnerable flesh under her ear while I held Riptide to her throat. Joe's explanation of a collective power, dictating the lives of misled demigods, corrupted by the keel of power and revenge against their never-present divine parents. The Organization, he'd called it. And what was an assassin's agency without a defining mark on the skin, forever naming their mercenaries as their own.

The pieces fell into place, clicking with absolute surety. No longer did I question Joe's words or his assurances. I knew they were wrong.

"Once a killer, always a killer," I hissed at him, a foreign snarl forming on my lips. My hand clenched over the gun's handle and I prepared to end a life I would have spared. Joe looked up at me with questioning acceptance. "You lied when you told me you'd redeemed yourself." I jerked my head at Felicia, whose hand was under the counter-top, grasping a weapon I couldn't see. "You came here because she's part of your Organization. You're working with the monsters outside city-limits. You tricked me." Anger surged deep inside me, the likes of which I had only felt in those moments of rage as I attempted to drown Olympus in my sorrows. I felt as though wind should have buffeted my arms, lifted me off the ground by my contempt and hatred. I heard something scream like steam channeled through a too-small pass, and then the plumbing broke. Water sprayed everywhere, fountaining through the air and dousing Joe. Everyone else screamed in alarm. Everyone except for Joe and I, who stared at one another.

"You're wrong," he told me quietly. "I know you think you're doing something good, but you're wrong." Joe's onyx eyes, like tar diluted with water, never left mine.

I gulped and shook my head. "I've been lied to one too many time, Yule." I couldn't steady my trembling hand. "An infinity too many people have crossed me. I'm sick of it."

If Joe had laughed, smirked, chortled, guffawed, scoffed, or sighed, his next word would have been easier to take. "Murderer."

Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes and my palm sweat like never before. Niagara Falls slicked my grip and I almost dropped the gun. Tommy still leveled Joe's pistol at him, but he watched me expectantly, as though waiting for my command. If Joe attempted to leave, and I told him to shoot, he'd do it. If I commanded him to lower his guard, he'd do it. If I pulled the trigger and terminated every harsh word ever to leave Joe Yule's mouth, he wouldn't bat an eye. His imposing blueish-green eyes waited for my signal.

I wanted to scream. This was exactly what I didn't want. People looking up to me. People counting on me to make their choices for them. I was a godsdamned kid! I never grew up past sixteen, not really. I spent my life on the streets, fighting for survival, scraping everything worth of food I could together. I'd turned jaded, cold, unfeeling, all to protect myself. But I never grew up. I never got the chance.

The Torturer's voice popped into my head. It echoed throughout my skull like a fleet of drums in a canyon, deafening and painful in its astuteness. _You've always been the hero. Young or old, you were always the Fates' puppet. That part of yourself never died, even if your sixteen year old self did. You will always be the Hero of Olympus._

"No!" I roared, dropping the gun as I held my head, burying it between my legs. "Shut up!"

_Hera banished you because you were a hindrance, a liability. She needed the selfless hero out of the way, needed to institute another who could make the sacrifices that had to be made. Your valiancy won the Titan War, but it will lose this one._

"What are you talking about?" I screamed, scrambling away from the growing apparition taking form from shadow and mist before me. It was only The Torturer's torso, but it was enough to draw a strangled cry from me. Vaguely, I noticed the alarmed stares I attracted from Joe and Tommy. I couldn't see Felicia or Julian, but I was sure they were equally speechless. Watching a man come undone before them, the last of his sanity slipping away.

With a fracturing consciousness, I watched Joe rise to his feet and walk toward me.

_You are the one that stands in the way of victory. It is better if you surrender now, safer for everyone if you bow to me. At least down here, there are no life-altering prophecies with which to contend. At least down here, the end of the world is not looming over your shoulder, ever present, ever teasing. At least down here, you are beyond the gods. At least down here, all there is to feel is pain. _

The Torturer's upper body floated on a dark cloud, dancing around as I shrunk away, curling tighter and tighter into a hysterical ball.

_No love. _He assured me. _No loss. No one depending on you while you know you're going to make the wrong choice and bury them all. Just the chains and you and me and my knife. Isn't that wonderful?_

I choked back a sob, feeling the glass encasing my sanity crack with audible forewarning. I clung to my knees, desperately holding the ice sculpture that was me together. But the summer sun and unforgiving playful children had rendered me beyond repair. My entire world narrowed into the voice of reason and my own fragile mutterings as I unraveled, fiber by unworthy fiber.

_You would have returned anyway_, The Torturer told me, his ghostly shade lowering to whisper in my ear. _That precious daughter of Athena of yours, the one you love so completely? When the battle came, she would have died protecting you. The last thing she would have said would be, "I'm happy to die for you."_

The Torturer touched my brow, and my mind flooded with an onslaught of images. Just as he said, Annabeth leaping before an arrow and taking the shaft directly under the heart. She looked up at me with whitening eyes, gasping "Grazed left ventricle. Gonna die." I clutched her hand to my chest, shaking my head as the tiniest trail of blood dribbled down her chin. "And my right lung," she mused aloud. "Great shot."

Around me, forces clashed, but it wasn't Monster vs. Demigod. I saw two teenagers battling, one of them Clarisse, another a dark-haired girl atop a deep-cream pegasus. My thoughts reached toward him, and he called toward me _"Master! Stop this!"_

The dark-haired warrior turned her piercing eyes to me, and I recoiled, still holding Annabeth. "What is wrong with you, Jack?" she demanded. "Leave the _graecus_. This is war."

I shook my head at her. "No. You have to stop this, Reyna." The words fell past my lips from another mind, a mind unbroken. Or was it just too broken to know how insane it was? "This isn't the answer. We have to work together, or . . ."

"Whose side are you on, praetor?" she roared, slamming the butt of her sword into Clarisse's temple. The daughter of Ares crumpled. "Leave the Greek. She isn't worth your tears."

"You don't even know her!" I wailed, looking down at Annabeth's whose eyes drifted closed. "Wise girl?" I screamed, shaking her. She didn't answer. "Wise girl!"

"I'm happy to die for you," she breathed, and then her hand slackened.

"No!"

_Your comrades would have looked to you as they fell, one by one by one._

I looked up as Nico ran toward me, stopping when he saw the body in my arms. "Eric?" he gasped, but then his eyes flitted to Reyna's expectant gaze and something changed on his face. "Percy?"

I didn't even look at him.

"Why did you-?" His eyes strayed to Annabeth again, and he crouched beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder. "She loved you. You left her, and she never stopped loving you."

I choked on my tears.

Nico stood and turned to Reyna, raising his blade to level it at her throat. "This ends now, Reyna. Call off your dogs."

Reyna grinned, motioning toward two prowling wolves, one pure silver and the other gold, lunging at demigods beside her. "The Greeks declared war by sending you to spy on my camp. This is merely answering to their demands."

Nico gave a strangled cry. "I went to Camp Jupiter on my own, Reyna! I was trying to protect Hazel!"

"And by doing so, you brought her second death!" Nico staggered like he'd been hit. "Yes, I had her execution ordered the second I discovered your true allegiance. Zhang nearly went mad and killed us all, but one of the Apollo children from Third cut his ranting short."

I'd never seen Nico so horrified. His sword clattered to the ground.

Covered in Annabeth's blood, I stood. "Stop it. Call off the advance. Please, Reyna. No more bloodshed."

Reyna leveled her sword at Nico's throat, smiling the whole while with sick knowingness on her face. I met Nico's obsidian eyes seconds before the light in them went out as Reyna buried her blade in his neck. He fell that way, staring at me as his life was snuffed out.

Reyna immediately whirled around, cutting down Travis and Connor in one blow. Her dogs dispatched with Clarisse, tearing out her throat, and when Chiron galloped up, her pegasus clashed with him and Reyna plunged her sword into his skull.

I stood in the middle of it, coated in blood, and tried not to vomit. Reyna turned back to me one last time, and with a voice that wasn't hers, boomed, "None of this would have happened if you'd just accepted my proposal."

"Enough!" someone shouted. But no, it was more of a loud whisper, echoing and grand throughout the battleground. All the fighting ceased, soldiers freezing with weapons raised above their heads, mid-cry. And then, it all fell away like shredded paper off a smooth surface, and in their place was a crisp image of a living room, with a redheaded man kneeling in front of me, eyes imploring, a short woman with non-memorable features, and two men standing side by side, one dwarfed by the others considerable bulk.

Behind me, a chair lie broken, splinters in my shirt. Said shirt was in tatters, completely un-salvageable, but my jeans were only hopeless up to the knees. I looked down at my hands, expecting to see them coated in blood, but they were bare. Not even a blemish or dirt spot.

I looked up at Joe, confused and conflicted. "What was that?" he demanded.

I only frowned, my throat dry and brain lifeless in my skull. I couldn't think of how to answer his question.

Joe grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "That thing that was just here. It was summoned when I used my powers against you. I could feel it in this room, and you were very, very afraid of it. What was it?"

I refocused my eyes on a spot on the carpet, sorting through my haphazard thoughts and picking the important ones. "He hates me," I told him. Joe scoffed, about to ask for more, but I went on over him. "He sent monsters to kill me and pulled me from Judgment. If I die again, I go back."

Joe jostled me rudely, and my eyes locked with his demanding black. "Go back where?"

"To him," I muttered. "To his prison. In Tartarus."

_And I'll be waiting for when you do._

**Alright, that ended a little smoother than before. I'm not immensely pleased with this chapter, but I have a grudging respect for it, considering the walls I encountered while writing it. **

**So, pretty much everything said here will make no sense to you if you haven't read Heroes of Olympus. There is no lack of unsubtle correlations to that. However, on the flipside, if you haven't the foggiest what Nico is talking about or who Reyna is, you're just as confused as Percy! Yay.**

**Not. So not. Percy's life sucks. He's given this awesome heritage and then "Wam! Yeah, you have to safe the world from this uber-villain. And after you do that? We're going to be assholes and banish you from our sight. Happy times!"**

**The sickening degree with which I am sarcastic in this AN serves you no purpose. You can leave now (and leave a review in the pretty box at the bottom.) and not be any the worse for wear.**

**So, I thought life was going to be easier when I got to this part. I thought it was gonna be like four chapters. **

**Ladies and gents, this is what happens when you don't plan. **

**I can't promise any set amount of chapters now. It's going to be less than thirty, but, you know, that's all I can give you. Based as my assessment of the evolution thus far, we'll have (counts them out on her fingers, mouthing the subsequent events) I can guess eight. Yeah, eight. You know what that is going to total me to? Thirty-flipping-seven chapters. And then you have Fiery Fiends, which is only going to be about fifteen if I stretch. Or, like forty, if you guys don't mind a bunch of boring non-action character building, which you're going to get in healthy amounts anyway because they don't leave Camp Half-Blood in that one! La-de-da-de-da.**

**Oh, and I'm a nice author, so I'm including a sneak-peek at Fiery Fiends in the last chapter of this (Warning: Troll!) which won't relieve your anxiety any. But I'm already working on it (and this is where the fans rise in revolt and shout "You're what? And I'm waiting this long for _this_ one?") so it should have semi-quickly at first, and then updating will return to normal. Ha.**

**Oh, right. So I haven't worked a bit on Siren's Song, but I'm working on that sequel because it's loads of fun to write. And depressing. Really depressing. Like, tears pour down your face with no end, depressing. **

**And I'm working on this really cool fanfiction right now (still PJO) that I want to run past you. Non-readers of HoO, there is no further sustenance to you. Find another fanfiction or read the next chapter, depending on whether you're from a future where I update or not.**

** Seriously, the last thing Leo Valdez wanted was to relive what can be definitively described as the worst part of his teenage career as a runaway. The stories he has about the garbage that trailed after him when he was thirteen-going-on-fourteen is seemingly endless. But, of course, Gaea has different plans.**

**When the battle for the real Mount Olympus goes sour for everyone, Leo is swallowed by the earth and deposited in Gaea's underground lair, which is now guarded by a physical, and wakeful, earth goddess. As if his life couldn't get worse, she tells him that she is meddling with the forces of time, eradicating the Seven demigods before they ever pose a problem against her new regime. And Leo is going to watch as Armageddon unfolds. And of course, being a hero, Leo has to find his friends-who have no idea who he is-and alert them of the impending danger. The problem? Only three of those demigods have any idea about the godly world, one is unreachable, one is happy in Canada, and the last? She's coped up in a Hollywood mansion under the impression Leo is a crazy stalker who reads too much Celebrity magazine.**

** Leo should have all the time in the world to set things right, even repair a couple oops in the timeline while he's at it, but things are rapidly spiraling out of control. Through a series of mishaps, Leo winds up in the middle of a quest to save Artemis with a bewildered Jason Grace tagging along for the ride. A disdainful Huntress chick (not Thalia) thinks he is absolutely detestable, and another Huntress chick is in his eternal debt for saving her life. The actual Thalia isn't a Hunter yet, but Leo discovers quickly where her affections lie. And Rachel Elizabeth Dare? Does _anybody_ know where she fits into this? **

**Tell me what you think of it. And this. So, yeah. I'm done.**


	30. Chapter 30

**Warning: Tissue chapter!**

Chapter Thirty

There Are Some Answers Better Left Questions

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to calm down. Most of that was spent hyperventilating while Joe apologized with surprising sincerity. That isn't to say he was the slightest bit ashamed or hysterical; he simply seemed unhappy with the results of his invasion on my fears. What outcome he had desired, I never wanted to know.

Finally, Felicia fetched me a cup of water from the kitchen and handed it to me. She seemed the perfect doting housewife, despite the fact I now knew she had once been a paid killer. Her brown curls bounced up and down as she hastened back to the kitchen with the promise of tea and soup. Tommy and Julian sat next to each other in two wooden chairs, looking between Joe and I like we would burst apart if they weren't looking at us. I shifted uneasily under their scrutinizing glares. Felicia returned, a whistling teapot on a tray with the classic eighteen-century china set beside it. She beamed merrily, the picture of a suburban woman, fretting over her kid's newest report card and pecking her husband goodbye on the lips on his way to work. It was unnerving.

Felicia straightened her skirt and perched on the couch beside Joe, watching me. It took me a second to realize she was waiting for me to say something. I looked to Joe, not really getting where to begin, and he understood my meaning. "Tell me exactly who this Torturer character is."

I sucked in a deep breath and swallowed a healthy dose of water before launching into my explanation. My throat felt dry and hoarse even though this was my third glass of refreshment, and when I spoke, it came out raspier than my usual tones. "Four or three years ago-I've lost count-I had a lot of monsters on my tail. They tracked me through most of New England after I ran across them in Kansas, and they herded me north. I have a safe house in Albany, stocked to the brim with nonperishables and weapons. I figured to stop there and make my final stand. But I hadn't slept in two or three weeks, at least not well, and I'd lost the horde for a couple miles. So I napped."

I closed my eyes, forcing down the memory of looking up from my bed to see a sword tip sink into my back. Reflexively, my hand floated behind me, tracing that small, hard-to-see white scar. Shuddering, I opened my eyes and saw that all four members of my audience were attentive and silent.

"I slept a little longer than I'd wanted, and when I woke up, one of the monsters stabbed me with a sword. I died instantly." A minor gasp from Tommy (which almost made me laugh, considering his bulk) was the only reaction I got. Otherwise, everyone sat impassive. This was where things got difficult to explain. Sam had noticed the scar on my back and asked about it, so I'd told her the half-truth-I'd been killed by a bunch of monsters, and in the process of escaping from death, I'd made a dangerous enemy. I never explained more than that, although she suspected Tartarus had been one of the many components of the story I omitted. But after my death, I hadn't even summarized. Just hinted. Danced around the topic. Beat around the bush. I bit my tongue and refused to say a word when people questioned me.

But something told me this time was different. Maybe it was just the attentive way they perched on the edges of their seats, waiting for me to continue. Maybe it was my own impatience with lying and hiding things from people. Or maybe it was something else entirely, an ulterior drive I would never comprehend. Whatever it was, it forced the words from my mouth before I could register what I was saying.

"I was in Tartarus."

Silence nestled around us like a cushion. It wasn't awkward or plain; more like a transitional part of the conversation, a moment for this topic to sink in before moving on. A time to contemplate, to understand and rationalize. I expected the reactions to be utter disbelief, a chorus of "Liar!" and "That's impossible!" arising from my audience, but they didn't even appear willing to speak. Felicia's eyes were sympathetic and she leaned across the coffee table to grasp my hand, but still, she said nothing. Tommy and Julian looked bewildered. Joe, on the other hand, watched me warily, as though unable to decide to which category I belonged: ally or enemy. I sensed a general enmity toward me radiating from him, but at the same time, for all his expressiveness, he was tightly guarded. Like a colorful tapestry wound to tight to unravel, so although it caught your attention in the side of the room and held it, it would never yield up the secrets you desired from it.

I almost asked them to say something, but bit my tongue. Come to think of it, I was grateful for the quiet. It made the confession easier on me. But at the same time, anxiety built up in my chest with every second they remained mute. I could only wait for a response.

Thankfully, it came in the form of a lithe son of Phobus. "Well, that is certainly an interesting story." From most people, that would have been an expression of their dubiety. But for Joe, it was simply a statement of fact. That was a puzzling part of his character, I noticed. He was so hard to pin down as a person, like he had multiple personalities or something, but at the same time, identical. There was this common trait throughout all his fluctuating moods-thoughtfulness. Every other demigod alive would be bouncing around if they were him, too anxious to stay still. But Joe would make the perfect sniper. He was patient, motionless, and calculating. I recalled that was exactly how he'd intended to kill the small girl he'd been hired to end; with a rifle from a rooftop.

During my speculation, I'd forgotten he was still talking, and I missed a good half of his conversation. I caught just enough to fill me in and give me a start, however. "-why would Tartarus give a flying fuck for a random douchebag on the street."

"Why would Anne fuck a random douchebag on the street for a year?" Felicia countered, and I startled, both at her knowledge of my past with Anne and her sudden usage of vulgar language. It shattered the housewife image and left me with a suddenly unknown entity sitting in the room beside me.

My shock must have shown on my face, because Felicia smiled at me and squeezed my thigh. It held no trace of sexuality; even less than if she'd patted my head. She laughed light and lilting, and I glanced at Tommy, who seemed bewitched by her. "I _was_ a member of The Organization, my dear. And although I defected long before you became Anne's assignment, I still have connections amongst the agents there. Everything is documented, and being a rogue in our eyes, you were closely followed. You were a difficult cookie to track, however" Her eyes twinkled. "That is something to be proud of."

Joe cleared his throat, leaning back on the couch like he was bored.

Felicia looked over at him, and I couldn't read her expression as she righted herself in her seat, straightening her skirt and sighing. "Anyway, it's obvious there's more to our dear Eric than meets the eye. Don't you agree?"

Unmasked disgust cloaked Joe's face, and he wouldn't meet Felicia's eyes.

She beamed in victory and adjusted so she faced me. "So, what was it? Certainly, you have quite the kill ratio, and in extreme situations, I can see why Anne would take you on. But for a year? She must have either despised you, liked you immensely, or found you particularly dangerous. Which was it?"

I shifted uneasily in my seat, Felicia's kind, yet unfaltering gaze unsettling me. "I don't know," I told her honestly, forcing myself to meet her eyes. "Anne was determined to kill me and still is. I don't know what her issue was. Or is," I corrected myself, recalling the encounter in the woods. Felicia looked uncertain, and even my reassuring shrug did nothing for her.

"What about this Torturer you talk about?" Joe demanded, returning to an involved posture with his elbows on his knees. "Why did he care about you? You can't try to tell me the primordial Fear bothers himself with pesky demigods running around the streets, unclaimed and unwanted." If I hadn't known Poseidon was my father, that last would have hurt like an icy poker through the heart. "So what's the explanation there?"

My heart lodged in my throat. I knew why-the Torturer told me once, during a session, that he'd been told to select me from the surface world by a persuasive and powerful being. I'd known instantly who he meant. The world in general might believe my death was real, but Kronos was the Lord of Time, a Titan, and now spread so thin over eternity there was no missing me. He'd commanded the Torturer to imprison me in the hopes of punishing his grandchild the same way he was.

But I couldn't tell Joe and Felicia without revealing my real identity. Hades, even Tommy and Julian, daft as they could be, would know the instant the explanation left my mouth. But the cat was out of the bag, and now I had to face the consequences of having a large, angry feline rip me to shreds for putting it in there in the first place.

I drew in a measured breath and closed my eyes, clenching my fists at my sides. "My name is Percy Jackson."

The response was immediate, but unexpected. Joe simply leaned away from me like I was a raging fire, Felicia choked even though she drank nothing, and Julian arched an eyebrow. Tommy just looked between the three of us-Joe, Felicia and I-like we were from outer-space. His gaze lingered on Felicia, as was just. She was his wife, who only seconds ago admitted herself to be an ex-assassin for an underground demigod organization. And now she stared at another, younger man like she wanted to kiss him. That last was something I detected when a relieved smile spread across her face and she looked ready to jump on me. I scooted away, afraid of both Tommy's wrath if she did and just the general possibility.

"Are you serious?" Joe barked, on his feet with a butter knife in his hand. Where the knife had come from, I wasn't sure, but it looked deadly in his grasp. "If you're lying to me . . ."

I threw my arms up, knowing how our fights usually ended. "I swear on the Styx!" Thunder rumbled its affirmation, and Joe glanced skyward. He lowered the unregistered silverware and dropped it on the table, running a single hand through his wild, busy red hair. He sagged into the couch, blinking.

Meanwhile, Felicia contained her exuberance. "I've heard volumes about you!" she exclaimed, darting forward to shake my hand. I didn't know how to respond, so I let her move my noodle-like extension of her own free will. "You are the _bane_ of The Organization. Everyone there despises you so passionately you have no idea. We quite literally sent this one daughter of Aphrodite to Camp Half-Blood hoping to kill you. She got stuck and never came back, but you kept fighting so we assumed she'd been caught."

My heart skipped a beat. Silena had been a member of The Organization? Had Luke been also? Was every corrupt demigod I'd fought during that war a brainwashed partner of Anne's, recruited into a group of ruthless recluses? I couldn't believe it, nor did I want to wrap my mind around the concept. But I felt the need to tell Felicia the truth.

"She's dead," I said softly, painful memories of a once-beautiful face eaten by acid with a raspy "See Charlie" exiting a mouth no longer recognizable. "She was killed by a drakon during the Battle for Manhattan."

Felicia sighed in relief. "Finally!" she exclaimed. "Good riddance! I was getting sick of that two-faced scheming silver-tongued bitch."

I didn't recall getting to my feet, and I certainly didn't recall grabbing Felicia by the scruff of the neck and shaking her violently. "You take that back!" I roared, and followed it up with a creative slur of nicknames for her. "Silena was a good person! She died for a noble cause, and I will not let you defile her memory li-"

A solid punch across my jaw sent me sprawling. "Never touch my wife like that again!" Tommy bellowed, chest puffed out and shoulders rolled back so he looked his toughest. I scrambled away him, expecting to exclaim "Hulk-Smash" any minute and crush me under his huge fists.

"Whoa!" Felicia called out, implanting herself between her enraged fiancee and me. "Honey, he was confused. He thought I was talking about _another _daughter of Aphrodite. His reaction was justified. She died a grave and noble hero." Tommy still fumed, but Felicia's words seemed to calm him down a few notches. The housewife turned to me, laughing nervously. "Sorry about that. I meant Drew Tanaka. Any one with a brain hates her."

I frowned, confused, but then breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't know who she is." I clapped Felicia on the back and walked back to my seat, laughing at my presumptuousness. Then I remembered myself. "I'm sorry for snapping."

Felicia waved it off and offered me a cup of tea. I politely refused and took a glass of water instead. "It's perfectly understandable," Felicia assured me as I sipped the refreshment. "Like I said, I've heard stories about Silena Beauregard, and if you'd thought I'd insulted her . . . Well, if I had, I would have punched myself."

"I didn't punch you," I pointed out.

Felicia laughed and walked over to sit by Tommy, who wrapped her in his arms protectively. An odd feeling sparked alive in my chest, and I thought of Annabeth in my arms like that, resting her head on my chest. Then I shook my head and mentally slapped myself for fantasizing.

That was when Julian piped up. "Sorry, but I don't get what all the hype is over." He looked between Joe and me. "I mean, what's the big deal with 'Percy Jackson.'?"

I was caught between conceited shock at his question and utter relief at him _not_ knowing who I was. It was nice for _someone_ to be in the dark about me. But then Joe went off and shattered my perfect world, scoffing and murmuring, "Romans. They never know anything."

Within a heartbeat, Julian was on his feet and looming over Joe. But he was half the size as Tommy, and Joe wasn't easily intimidated. "Say that again, I dare you."

Joe sat up and pushed squarely on Julian's chest. "Romans never know anything." Every word was enunciated like he was giving a speech. Julian gave a step, and Joe stood up, nose-to-nose with him. "Do you need me to say it one more time?"

"I oughta . . ." Julian grabbed Joe's arm, but no sooner had he done so than he collapsed to the ground, screaming incoherently. Joe watched him impassively, much like a toddler would a dying cockroach. Blank fascination.

Felicia surged to her feet and then fell to her knees at Julian's side, reaching up to grab Joe's hand. He looked down at her. "Nephew, stop."

Julian stopped screaming.

The entire exchange had gone down in less than half-a-minute, and I hadn't had time to react when Julian hit the ground. So when it was over, I was only partially out of my seat. My eyes flew up to Joe, gauging his reaction. There was no sign of remorse or regret on his face. Just irritation, like almost driving a man insane was nothing to be ashamed of. I shuddered.

The son of Apollo rose from the ground, panting and gasping for air. He gripped Felicia's shoulder, tears streaming down his face, and then looked over at Tommy, who hadn't moved from his seat. He stared at his friend, pale and sweaty. Julian wheezed as he spoke, and no lack of hysteria clung to his voice. "Camp," he breathed through tears. "Burning. Everyone dead. We were fighting, but New Rome was just _burning_. And no water would stop it. We emptied the Aqueduct, and it wouldn't stop. It just _kept burning_."

He pulled his knees up to his chest and sobbed shamelessly and quietly while Felicia patted his back. She didn't speak, just glowered at Joe like she wished pain and agony upon him.

That was when I remembered her name for him. "You called him nephew," I blurted. Felicia turned to me, eyes fierce. "Your a daughter of Ares."

"Yes," she snapped. "I realize I don't quite fit the part, but we're not a fleet of stereotypes. I'm happy at home with Tommy. The small-town life suits me. I was never a fan for massive bloodshed or busy cities."

I smirked, unable to stop myself. "You're the antithesis of Clarisse la Rue, then."

Felicia didn't show indication that she either knew or didn't know Clarisse, which worried me slightly, but I ignored it in favor of answers.

"Joe." The son of Phobus looked away from his victim, eyes chiller than Antarctica. "What did you do to him?"

"The same thing I did to you," he answered easily, like commenting on the business in the park. "Only yours went a little farther. I merely gave him a taste of his own worst fear. It was an accident, I assure you." He glanced down at Julian. "I'm sorry for hurting you." He didn't sound sorry at all. There was really no apology to his voice. He quoted society, and that was all. Another unnerving part of his particular mood.

"That is it!" Felicia snapped, her finger pointing toward the hall from which he had originally appeared. "You are in a mood like no other, Joseph Joshua Yule, and I will not stand for it. Your room, now."

I expected Joe to lash out and threaten her with his gun, but instead he sighed, stood, and walked in the specified direction. He vanished from a sight, and a second later, a door clicked shut.

Felicia looked down at Julian again, squeezing his shoulder in a motherly gesture. "It's alright," she assured him. "He's out of the room now. Every now and again Joe gets into a particularly foul mood and it literally rubs off on everyone else. He doesn't have as strong a sense of right and wrong as most people. Sometimes, I have to curb him."

"He's a sociopath," I categorized, still staring at the place I had last seen the redheaded kid.

Felicia looked up at me and opened her mouth, but closed it and pursed her lips. "Only sometimes. And the word you're looking for is psychopath. He just can't . . . connect with people as well as you and I. It's a defense mechanism from being the son of Phobus. A lot of times, his siblings inflict so much pain on others, and they feel too much of it to stay right in the mind. He shut down those faculties years ago. That's what made him such a deadly assassin, no matter what he tells you. He would kill without question. But he is my nephew, and I'd already defected by the time we met. So I managed to convince him what he was doing was wrong. The final straw was just their request for him to kill a little girl." She looked at me pointedly. "Even the coldest of men can sense the warmth of a child and know it's wrong to kill them. Joe is no exception."

"He's a monster," Julian hiccuped, his tears running silently down his face now. He only looked slightly jarred as opposed to completely shattered. At least, some of the color had returned to his face.

"No," Felicia said shortly. "He had the misfortune to be born to the coldest, evillest god on Olympus. Phobus is the worst among them. He feeds off of fear and takes pleasure in people's pain. Joe isn't like that. He has to fight not to be, too. He says its like a person with alcoholic tendencies mistaking bear for water all the time. It's a uphill battle to keep from giving into the addiction."

Just then, Julian was suddenly and violently sick on Felicia carpet. She didn't look angry. She just patted his back reassuringly, whispering condolences as he wretched himself hoarse.

"That's not right," I muttered, shaking my head as I watched Julian lurch forward as wave after wave of vomit forced itself from his mouth. I didn't feel ill either. I'd thrown up too many times because of the Torturer's poison to get queasy while watching someone else do it. "It shouldn't be like that."

Felicia nodded and motioned Tommy toward the kitchen. He carefully maneuvered around the dark stain on his floor. "And yet it is. I'm sure you can understand. As a son of Poseidon, there has had to be moments when your power either becomes intoxicating or uncontrollable."

My mind flashes back to three moments in my past: First, when I was fourteen. Geryon's Ranch. I'd stuck a deal with the three-torsoed man, and he promised to release my friends if I could muck out the wretched horse stalls. I unleashed a whirlwind of my power, and I almost couldn't stop it before it flooded the entire ranch. Then, not that long after, I'd been cornered by telekhines in a volcano. I'd exploded, and hundreds of people were evacuated. The casualty number was still pending. And lastly, when I was seventeen, just before the monsters caught me in Albany. There had been a crook in an alley, holding a gun to a pretty blonde woman that reminded me so much of Annabeth I would have sworn it was her twin. When he raised his gun and her head, I shouted "Stop!" But he didn't obey me, per say. Instead, he started coughing and wheezing, clawing at his shirt like he couldn't breathe. His face turned purple, and he expressed every bit the signs of a drowning man, only he wasn't anywhere near water. He was weak and frail on the ground by the time I'd realized I'd done it; redirected a small percentage of the total amount of water in his body to his lungs to drown him. I almost killed a man because I couldn't control myself. And the worst part was, when the woman screamed in delight and kissed me full on the mouth in gratitude, I'd liked it. Feeling empowered, like I could make a difference. I almost finished him off, just because he disgusted me. I almost went too far.

I shuddered, hating the memories. Then I nodded.

Felicia helped Julian to his feet after he was done getting sick. Tommy reemerged from the kitchen with a massive pan and handed it to Julian. He also handed Felicia a bucket of cleaning supplies. Then he sat down on the couch to comfort his friend.

A strange sense of guilt held me back from the other two men in the room. so I knelt down to help Felicia clean up the vomit. As I scrubbed at the grey carpet, I glanced up at her. "So you know a lot about The Organization?"

"Sweetie," she smiled, putting a surprising amount of rippling arm muscle into her motions. "I was The Organization for years. I know just about every little dirty secret of theirs from '76 on."

I frowned, giving her a onceover as I dipped my washcloth into a water bucket. Felicia had a surprising amount of toned muscles on her arm, which rippled as she scrubbed the ground. The stain started to come out. "How old are you, exactly?"

She laughed. "Younger than I look. I didn't sign up until 1994 when I was thirteen."

I did some quick mental math. "So you're 34?" I snorted. "No offense, but I find that difficult to believe. You look twenty-two."

Felicia threw her hand back and laughed, for a moment resting back on her haunches and shaking her head at me, much like I'd expect a disbelieving mother to do after her child does something stupid. It reminded me a little too strongly of my mother, Sally Jackson, and I shudder desperate the heat in the room. "Demigods don't tend to show their age as much as some others might. We're far from immortal, although if we manage to skip over illness and monsters, we can live a decade or two longer than the average mortal. But no, right now, it doesn't apply to you. But give it a few years, and you'll be convinced you're looking at a younger version of you when you look in the mirror."

"We're really not _that_ old, Feli," Tommy protested, shooting his wife a dirty look.

Felicia waved him off with a promising smile. "I know that, Tom. Doesn't stop me from teasing, now does it?" she winked as Tommy sobered, crossing his arms like a pouting three year old. It was a fascinating expression on his gruff, aged looking face. He had definitely seen his far share of battles, that much I could tell.

Someone, seeing me looking twenty-one ten years from now disturbed me on some deep level. Probably because I didn't expect to live that long, and the foolish sentiment of galloping toddlers filled my head. I shook it free of the nonsense, focusing on the task at hand. I tried to steer the conversation back on topic casually, but instead it felt more like a anvil dropped in the middle of a calm lake. "Can you tell me anything about them?"

Felicia froze, and her eyes darted up to me, brimming with wariness. "Tell you about who?" Judging by her tone, she already knew who I was talking about. But I was by far too stupid to sense her growing unease, even as it radiated from her like a blast furnace.

"The Organization. You were a member, right? Can you tell me anything about them?"

I couldn't read her expression as she rested back on her haunches, feet tucked under her rump, and studied me. It could have been anything from admiration to disgust, and it was all so well-hidden I might never know. Except for a gut feeling that this was about to grow horribly wrong.

"I know a lot about the Organization," she told me again. "Why do you want to know?"

Again, being blind as a bat to body language, I blundered ahead. "It might help me to find them. Maybe after that I could-"

"Tommy, take Julian into the hall. Let him sleep on the guest bed. Stay with him until I call you."

Tommy startled, staring at his wife as though seeing her in a new light. He blinked for several befuddled seconds before she whirled on him and spat, "_Now!_"

Him and Julian scampered out of there like deer with their tails between their legs and their eyes earthward and guilty. I felt Felicia's displeasure return to me as she dropped the washcloth in the bucket of water. It made a soft, foreboding _splash!_. "Are you sure you want to know?" she asked me, grinning.

I nodded, finally getting the brainpower to be afraid of her expression. I recoiled a bit, forgetting the cloth atop the vomit stain. It had become to come out, leaving subdued blue carpet beneath. The water was colored with the filth dumped into it.

I nodded, still feeling the certain keel of doom on me as she stood and walked over to the counter. She opened a drawer, and for a terrifying moment, I thought she was reaching for a gun. Then she pulled out the epitome of a little black book. She opened it to the first page and handed it to me. "Read it," she instructed. When I eyed it cautiously, she continued, "It's in Greek, except for the names. Which is most of it, I'll admit. But you're a big boy. You can do it."

I wasn't a fan of patronizing, but I got the impression here was a moment to take it in stride. I took the book from her and leafed through the pages, one by one. There were all dated, the earliest a sloppily scribbled name that read: _Eddy McDiver_, _S. Dakota. 10-13-1994_. It advanced on a pretty linear schedule, each one a consecutive date from the last. It moved on through, until I got to the eighteenth page, which read: _Perseus Jackson. 15. High-risk target. Approach with caution. Kill on sight. 4-12-08._

I looked up at Felicia, the book limp in my hands. "This was when I was fifteen," I breathed, unbelieving. "What were you doing with my name in your little black book when I was _fifteen!_" I threw it down in a blind rage, surging to my feet over the vomit without a care in the world aside from revenge. My voice picked up a little at that last word, but no one stirred from their dwellings. Probably too scared for their lives.

Felicia stared me down, unperturbed. "Because you have been a High-Risk Target since your evasion of Atlas and success after holding the sky. We determined then that, if permitted to continue, you would be detrimental to our organization. It was a consensus that the best of our agents would go after you."

My rage died down to a simmer, and then extinguished entirely along with the foundations of my world. I stood there, arms hanging at my sides, eyes only just beginning to water, as Felicia usurped everything I had come to believe.

"I was one of the first hired to stop you. Three of our agents, excluding myself, were strategically placed in the invading army, striking you while in the midst of battle. We assumed you wouldn't make it out alive, mostly because the monsters, but we wanted insurance. I fought beside Michael for most of the battle until we came up against you. You outstripped us by far, even though we had been trained to kill almost since birth. But you didn't end Michael, like I'd feared. You only knocked him out with the butt of your sword, turned the blade on me, and asked me to take my friend and get out."

I didn't remember this, but I said nothing.

"I did so. I took Michael and escaped through the woods. When he woke up, he demanded we go back after you. Insisted there was too much money on your head to trust the monsters. I told him no. I was not going to kill a man who spared my life when I wouldn't spare his. Michael spat at me. He called me a disgrace. He ordered me to go back after you and put a bullet in your brain. He even handed me the gun. I still refused. I tried to tell him we'd had it all wrong, that the gods weren't our enemy, that we shouldn't spite them by killing people because of money. He wouldn't listen. I tried to walk away and he attacked me. I shot him in the heart.

"After he was dead, I buried him. Then I left. I cut off ties with the Organization for a year before I started digging again, a few weeks before the Battle of Manhattan." My mind flashed back to those weeks leading up to it, when I was free as a bird and happy, hanging out with Rachel. My world crumbled a little bit more. "I found out they were still after you, only they had a serious vendetta. Apparently you'd been elevated from 'High-Risk' to 'Stop At All Costs.' People forfeited their lives to see you stopped. And when I asked an old friend to tell me more, I discovered why."

Felicia motioned that I sit down, but I couldn't. I just stared at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Eventually, she sighed and sat down herself, crossing her legs in that prim and proper fashion. But her face was anything but snobbish and aloft.

"One of our agents is an augur. He divines the will of the gods through entrails. And he saw you would be a vital instrument in a pending war. The outcome of the Titan War was etched in stone, he assured us, which was why we changed sides and assisted in the leveling of Mount Orthys. But he told us that a greater power would come, one whose price we could never refuse. He told us you'd be a first priority then, too, but you had to be destroyed before you could pose a sufficient threat. He proposed a plan to delay the war and nullify you as an advisory."

I knew what was coming before it hit, but that didn't make the blow any easier to take. It never did.

"He exploited Hera's deluded concept of familial protection-"

This was the other shoe.

"-and gave us strict instructions how to handle it."

My world's spiral into oblivion sped up, a little faster every word that came from Felicia's lips.

"Him and Anne were always obscenely and intimately close. She was always such a little whore."

My knees were bent, my teeth locked together so I wouldn't bite off my tongue.

"They planned what they were going to do, and eventually, they came to a conclusion."

This was the impact. This was the earth-shattering boom that would crush me, and simultaneously bring the frayed edges of my sanity back together, all at once.

"Anne talked to her mother, Apacte, who was more than happy to help her-"

"_Am I lying to you when I lie about Hera lying to you?" _Gods, how hadn't I seen it before?

"-she talked to Hera. From what I understand, it was a tense argument-"

This had been right in front of my nose the whole time, and I'd simply been too blind to see it. "_Am I lying when I tell you the truth about lying to Hera so she would lie to you?" _Apacte told me everything that day she visited me. She'd known I wouldn't figure it out, would forget about until years later, when that was all but behind me. When it was too late to redeem myself, to turn back the clock. When all hope for a salvageable future was long gone.

"-but Hera believed her. Even knowing her skills, Hera was fooled. Everyone is. So she discussed it with the Olympians. Some agreed readily. Some argued over it. Your father was among them."

The condolence did nothing for my failing sanity. The fear I had silenced for years crept back into my chest of its own accord, and I suddenly couldn't breathe properly.

"It didn't matter. Octavian knew it wouldn't. Apacte had too many connections, too much unfailing importance to the darker side of Olympus. The gods couldn't challenge her authority, lest they risk anarchy. And her warning must have been terrifying."

_If you do not leave, bad things will happen_. Hera never promised to harm my friends, she implied harm would befall them if I stayed. It made so much sense now. So much perfect sense.

"When Apacte assured Hera that the Torturer was plotting his escape and that only a demigod could fight him, Hera conferred with Zeus. They determined that the strongest demigod of this age was you."

How could I have been so godsdamned blind? I should have seen. I should have known. But I didn't, and now there was no turning back. The bridge to my past had been burned long ago. And now there was only my future.

"So Hera banished you from Camp Half-Blood with the knowledge you would be imprisoned in Tartarus. She convinced you Camp Half-Blood was in danger, and you leaving was best. So you did. I nearly cried when I heard about your 'death.'"

_So did I_. I thought to myself numbly, and that last tenuous grasp on reality started screaming as I stretched it.

"They always planned to return you to Camp Half-Blood once you escaped from Tartarus. The Organization never wanted you to escape from Tartarus. So they sent Anne after you. And you never made it home."

I fell to my knees and cried. I heard Felicia walk over a rest a hand on my shoulder in comfort, but there was none to be had.

"I'm sorry, Percy. The Organization stole your life."

**That was quite probably unforgivably long. Sorry for making you read so much, but it had to be crammed in here. This also shortens the book considerably, so yay!**

**If anyone of you cried, I'm sorry. This is not the end of your tears.**


	31. Chapter 31

**Warning: Not a tear-jerker. But short, and of moderate quality. And slightly shocking (you'll realize the morbid pun after you read). **

Chapter Thirty-One

Brick By Brick

When Hera banished me, that was like having the rug taken out from under my feet and being dumped on the ground. My entire world evaporated inside of a second, leaving me splayed on the floor, dazed and delirious from grief and shock. The words "You will leave Camp Half-Blood and never return" destroyed everything I had ever known. Shattered the man I was growing into. Dropped a burning tree in the path I had chosen and railroaded me in a different direction.

But this was worse. The ground turned to gas and I plummeted hundreds of feet. But then I just floated, suspended in the dark infinity of hopelessness. Grasping for something - _anything _- that I knew. That I could hold onto. But nothing lasted. Nothing was solid. It was all wisps of a life I would never have again.

All because of The Organization.

In that moment, I came to understand the world. Not in all its complexities, not the subtleties that elude scientists; I understood hate. And not disgust. Not anger. Not vengeance. This was loathing. This was a murderous rage, the likes of which unrivaled at any other time in my sane existence - even the gods, when they forced me from their sight with the threat of genocide, could incur such contempt from me. Save that day in the throes of the Torturer's madness when I attacked Olympus, intending to bring it down.

But insanity and I had a familiarity with each other. Unlike most madmen, mine wasn't a constant disease; more like a sporadic symptom of the Torturer that peeked from its roast from time to time. It darkened my vision, made me think in muddled thoughts, numbed my muscles as I inched off the edge of rationality.

No, this was no onslaught of insanity. I saw clearer, thought clearer, than I ever had in my life. I saw forward in time days, weeks, plannind and plotting the destruction of my newest foes. I saw The Organization, burning as people wailed from the heat. I saw Anne, kneeling before me with desperation evident in her eyes for the first time in her life. I felt my right arm rise, knife clutched in my palm as I dragged the edge over her throat. Reveled in the sticky spray as it coated my face. Laughed at the rightness of it all. Basked in the sunlight filtering from a cloudy sky. Danced in the river of crimson, pouring from the doorsteps of my demise.

Marveled at the irony in how the man they had undone had been their undoing.

A saner individual might perceive this to be madness. They could be right. I'm not sure. I only know that in that moment, I felt righteous and affirmed in my decision to diserect The Organization. To tear it down, in the infamous words of Kronos, brick by brick.

I stood. It wasn't a conscious decision as much as a logical evolution of movement. I wanted to get somewhere, and there was no dignified way to commute on your knees. My arms hung at my sides, inanimate as the expression on my face. I was leaden, heavier than two hundred pounds. Heavier than two thousand pounds. Heavier than the world itself, which I knew from experience weighed an insurmountable amount. The sky resituated on my shoulders, and my knees burned as I fought against the crushing force.

My earth and sky were closing in on each other, and I couldn't figure out which was which anymore.

My feet paded against the floor, which I now realized was wet. There was a fountain of water spurting from my right, where I was positive the kitchen was. I puzzled over it with my mind. Perhaps my original assessment of my mental faculties was flawed; the Torturer's influence dulls everything for me, but right now I felt utter clarity where a single door was concerned. Everything else could be damned.

The water smacked against my face, but it only cemented my footing, brought the slightest trace of feeling to my fingertips. I wiggled them to confirm their presence on my hands. Then I moved from the fountain and into the hallway.

My shoes squished on the ground as I moved from wood to carpet flooring. I ignored the sound, passing a cracked door, revealing the horrified eyes of Tommy, and advanced on an even plainer room. The door was latched.

I raised my hand, curled in a fist, and brought it down on the hollow wood three times. My knuckles descended in measured beats, like the quarter notes of a drum. I let my arm fall back to my side, staring intently at the door where I knew a head would be in a handful of seconds. I said nothing - I doubted the functionality of my voice. Without speaking, I could tell it was unsteady and hoarse.

True to my predictions, the door opened, but only just. A little more than Tommy's door, but nothing drastic. Joe's knowing gold eyes settled on my me, and my attention strayed to the gun in his hand, barrel sticking through the crack in the door. I was undaunted.

"I want to talk to you." Even to me, my voice sounded empty. Footsteps came from behind me, and Joe's eyes darted over my shoulder. I remained motionelss.

"What's going on?" Joe demanded of the person behind me. "I can't feel any fear coming off of him. I can't feel _anything_ coming off of him."

Felicia's voice came in a bashful reply. "I told him what The Organization did, Joseph. I think he's in shock."

I blinked, eyelids heavy, but not from sleep. Shock? Yes, she was right. This was shock. So not insanity. It was just a logical part of grieving. And I was grieving. I grieved for an opportunity wasted, for a life lost. I grieved for a love that only held a tendril on my heart, one that could have saved me, given time. I grieved for a home I would never see again.

But most of all, I grieved for my innocence, which burst into a shower of sparks the second the truth came out.

Joe opened the door completely, stepping aside without another word. I breached the threshold. "Sit down," Joe bid me. I didn't. "I'm not suggesting it. Sit down."

Something skidded across the floor and cut my legs from under me. I landed hard, but not painfully. I couldn't seem to feel pain at the moment.

Joe walked into my peripheral vision, pulling up a sister chair, which he carried in front of me. I studied his unremarkable room; a plain white bedspread with matching walls. A single dresser with a lamp atop it. A shallow stack of papers. A closest, which seemed to be vacant. His only clothes were a black shirt on the bed and the jeans he actively wore.

I also noticed that his hair was shorter. Not by much, and it was choppy on the part that had been trimmed. It was obvious he had adopted my method of using a knife as his barber. But it was there. And he'd shaved. I hadn't noticed a beard before, but now that it was gone, it seemed affronting.

Joe's eyes had the attentiveness that had been present when I met him in the cabin and explained my quest to him. His mood seemed to shift a lot too. I'd already noticed that before though, so it wasn't as important as the others.

"What do you want?" Joe asked, voice level and calm.

"Your help."

"With what?" Joe's eyebrows drew together, but only slightly. Hardly perceptible, if I hadn't been looking so close. He had the beginnings of a pimple forming along the right side of his jaw. A pale white scar, the length of a fingernail, discolored his tan skin just under the ear. His upper lip twitched sporadically, and he didn't seem to acknowledge the movement. It seemed like he was trying to smile, but couldn't force his entire face to do so.

"You don't like The Organization," I told him. Joe tensed like he wanted to snap at me, but held his tongue. "You want to destroy it." This time, Joe nodded, but he didn't relax. "I want to help you."

Joe eyed me warily for a moment before sighing and shaking his head. His shoulders didn't ease up, though. "You're angry," he said. "I can feel it. It's pretty muffled. I don't think you're letting yourself feel as much as you should."

"How can you feel anger?" I asked. Normally, I would have been surprised. Now, I was just curious.

Joe smirked. "I get angry all the time," he joked. When I frowned at him, about to retort that he had missed my meaning, he buried his face in his hands. "Anger is a byproduct of fear."

I blinked, stunned for a millisecond. Then I scrambled away from him.

_Without me, there can be no anger, for anger comes from fear. Fear spurs hatred, and hatred spurs war. War is the antithesis of peace, and thus peace cannot exist without. Love is a hope for compassion, and compassion is derived from love._

Joe advanced on me, and then his hand shot out, grabbing my scalp aggressively. I screamed, fear swallowing me whole, and then it was gone. Evaporated like a drop of sweat on a hot summer day.

I sagged to the ground, my desensitivity shattered like a glass illusion. Ragged breaths heaved from my chest, my palms pressed against the ground. I glanced up at Joe, something dawning on me for the first time.

_Thwart the attempts of hope's ancient Foe._

My mind reeled, a million pieces clicking into place one at a time as I stared at Joe, horror tangible in my mind.

_I am Fear itself, Eric. The primordial that started it all. The Ancient Being that is the basis for everything. Without me, there can be no hope, for hope is in my spite._

Joe's introduction before, when I met him in the cabin. _I'm a son of Phobos_.

Clarisse when I was fifteen and helping her steal back her father's chariot. _Phobos is the god of fear._

Now I knew why I was so wary around Joe, and it wasn't just because of his twisted gift, given to him by his father. It was because of something very simple, something I'd known the whole time but never acknowledged.

The Torturer was the enemy fortelled in Rachel's prophecy. He was still trapped in Tartarus, no chance of ever escaping. No, "hope ancient foe" was just fear, and fear came in three forms.

The first was the Torturer, who I had already evaded.

The second was Phobos, who I had angered but was a god, shackled by the Ancient Laws, and could not take vengeance on me.

The last was Phobos' son. And judging by what I had seen so far, there was nothing I could do to stop him.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

I'm Free! I'm Free . . . ! Dang it.

For a second, all I could do was stare at Joe, horror building in my chest. What was he doing that I had to thwart? Was he double-crossing me? Was this all just an elaborate lie meant to gain my trust and use it against me, just as it had been with Anne? What was Joe's hidden agenda? Judging the coldness with which he operated, I couldn't imagine something as simple as a little girl's life on the line was anything to fret over. So what tore it? Or was this all just an act?

Joe grasped my arm and hauled me to my feet. "You've got my help," he told me solemnly, and it sounded sincere. But considering how believable Anne had been, I wasn't reassured. "It'll be nice having someone like you lending a hand."

I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean?"

Joe just smirked, and some of the guy I met in the cabin peeked through. "Children of the Big Three are a novelty for The Organization. Back in B.C., they had herds worth of them, but so did everyone else. Now, with only six alive . . ."

"Whoa," I interrupted, blinking and holding up a silencing hand. Joe arched an eyebrow. "Six? What are you talking about? There's three. One for each. And as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I'm dead."

"Not even," Tommy cut in, shooting me a disbelieving glare. "You've got Jason. That is it."

"Jason?" I echoed. "Who in Hades is Jason?"

Felicia literally leapt in between us, hands outstretched like she knew our conversation would escalate rapidly. "Now, now, boys," she chided, and an underlying tone of trepidation sprinkled her voice. I could barely hear it, but Tommy frowned like she was wailing in despair. "Let's not get overzealous here. We've got a lot to go over, and we haven't scratched the surface of what's really going on."

That drew a question from me. "What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, batting her hand aside. Tommy almost dropped Julian in his haste to block me. "'what's really going on.' What do you know that we don't?" I motioned to emphasize either pronoun.

Felicia chewed her bottom lip and held up both her arms in conciliation. "Please, Percy, there is a lot we know that you know." She mocked me by pointing. "Joe and I still have connections in The Organization, even if we've defected. Your banishment happened after my time, remember?"

I backed up, looking between Felicia and Joe. I jerked my thumb at the latter. "I thought you found out through him?"

Felicia shook her head. "No. Joe kept to himself, mostly. He believed in The Organization for years before they hired him to kill that little Fisher girl."

My heart skipped three solid beats before her words registered in my mind. "Fisher?" I echoed. Unwanted pieces began clicking for me, falling like rain exactly where they needed to land. Sam was twelve now. Joe was hired to kill a nine-year-old girl three years ago. Twelve minus three equals nine. I met Sam less than _one_ year ago. I shook my head without knowing I was doing it. "You can't be talking about Samantha Fisher," I decided.

Felicia, during my lengthy thought process, had assisted Julian into Joe's room and helped him lie down. She looked up from situating her fiancee's best friend, blinking at me like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She straightened and glanced at Joe, who already had an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"How did you know that?" he asked calmly.

It seemed like a funny question. "Sam is a little girl. I met her on the road. She ran away from about three years ago because . . ." I stopped. "Because she'd almost died in her room."

Joe leaned against the doorframe. "You know the kid they wanted me to shoot?" He scoffed. "Damn. You really get around, don't you?"

I snapped. "You son of a bitch!" The water came out of nowhere and slammed him against the wall. A second later, my arm pressed against his throat and his head rapped audibly against the wall. "You tried to kill her! You tried to kill Sam! I'll kill you, I swear to Olympus. You will never . . ."

"Eric?"

I froze, face feeling odd from its contortion, and slowly rotated on the balls of my feet to look behind me. In a wispy, badly connected Iris-Message, Chiron's shocked expression was framed. He held five cards in his hands, and I couldn't see who he was playing with, but judging by the furious bleating from the other end, I suspected they could see me.

I was suddenly very aware of the fact that, A, I'd been on the streets for months and my clothes looked like shit but my body was unharmed. B, I was in an unfamiliar building surrounded by unfamiliar people. C, I held one of said unfamiliar individuals against the wall while I screamed at him like I was a schizophrenic and everyone else watched in petrified alarm, a D, everyone except me was drenched in water from head-to-toe.

Oh, I realized with numb horror. I had also drawn Riptide-still in pen form-from my pocket and brandished it at Joe like a lunatic sometime during my enraged delirium.

I released Joe and smoothed my shirt, like that was going to salvage any of my alleged sanity. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Long time, no see, Horse Fur."

Chiron studied each of the demigods in the room with that X-Ray vision he just had about people. "And who are these children? Friends of yours?"

I scowled at him, feeling like I had when he revealed my godly parentage to me when I was twelve-like he was antagonizing me. "I don't have _friends_, Horse Fur," I growled. "These are allies. And temporary ones, at that. They've offered to help me with the monsters."

Chiron raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh? Are they all like you?"

I smirked at him. "I broke the mold, Chiron." The centaur's expression changed from controlled calmness to puzzlement. It was the same countenance that had spread over his face when I arrived from Ogygia; the sense that he already knew the truth and just kept to himself to spare me.

I gulped.

"I thought so," he breathed, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. "Grover, if you would." Chiron motioned toward what I assumed was the door, and I caught sight of a pair of furry hindquarters leaving before the door clicked shut. Chiron swiveled his head about and sighed. "Percy, I would like an explanation."

I slashed the message.

I leaned against the wall, mind wheeling, as I tried to think of what to do. Chiron knew, but he'd figured it out while I was _outside _of Camp boundaries. Did that nullify my agreement with Hera? Probably not. He'd send satyrs out for me, I just knew it. And the fact Grover had been in that room seconds before scared me. Was it possible to cauterize an empathy link? I sure hoped so.

"Percy, what is wrong with you?" Felicia demanded, crossing her arms in disapproval.

I blinked at her. "Oh, I don't know. Let me think - oh, how about _getting the Hades out of dodge_?" I no sooner finished speaking to her than I started for the door, but Tommy considerable hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back, staggering, in front of his chastising wife. "I've got to go!" I screamed, fighting him. "Look, you don't get it. I stay, and Hera . . ."

"What did I just tell you?" Felicia interrupted. I faltered, blinking at her as understanding dawned. "You're free. Hera lied to you about punishing Camp Half-Blood. Now, your only duty is to those people to get those monsters and send them back to Tartarus the hard way." She reached over and gripped my arm in reassurance. "Percy, stop running away when there's nothing to run _from._ You've got your life back. Take it."

I stared at her for a good three minutes, not registering. But then the Iris Message reappeared, and in its frame was Chiron once again, looking pensive and apologetic. "Eric," he said, returning to my alias for a reason I wasn't sure. I turned to look at him, and Chiron met my eyes with water brimming in his. "Good luck on your quest. I look forward to seeing you again." He paused meaningfully. "We all will."

He broke the connection this time, leaving me standing in the middle of Felicia's home in Brodnax, Virginia, wondering why my old mentor didn't want me back.

**Name the movie the chapter title is from and you get spoilers.**

**I'm a terrible, terrible person.**


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